


Revelation

by orphan_account



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Injury, Case Fic, Demons, Drinking to Cope, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fallen Angels Are Assholes, Heaven vs Hell, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Character Death, Murder Mystery, Past Abuse, Pre-Apocalypse, Ritual Cutting, Sibling Incest, Supernatural Elements, Twins, Underage Kissing, Underage Masturbation, Unhealthy Relationships, a lot of swearing, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:50:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21508411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Detective Mallory Langdon is a part of an investigation into a string of bizarre murders. Solving the mystery requires her to confront her past and the sibling she left behind.
Relationships: Michael Langdon/Mallory
Comments: 73
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are my own. Apologizes in advance for misinterpretation of religious scripture. It's fiction, what are you gonna do?
> 
> Thank you to my darling SophieGraceJ for her help unravelling my thoughts about this fic <3

Brookings, Oregon is six miles north of the California border on highway 101. The town sees a fair amount of tourist activity in the summer months, people driving up the coast to camp and enjoy the sea air. In the off season, the population holds steady at 6,336 people. It’s a small enough number that folks notice when people go missing.

Early morning, just as the sun is rising above the trees, Detective Mallory Langdon pushes herself further down a hiking trail fifteen minutes from the city centre. She passes the base of a redwood and takes the corner tight, breath coming in controlled puffs. She keeps her weight back on her heels and picks her way down the incline on the other side. Black thermals wick the sweat away from her steaming skin and keep her warm underneath her department issue wind breaker.

Long distance running can have a similar effect on the brain as meditation, but you have to push through the glycogen depletion—the overwhelming fatigue and negativity. You have to want to keep going.

Mallory wants to finish the six-mile loop. She wants the clarity. Needs it. She’s been drowning in memories since she woke screaming four hours ago. Images keep getting jumbled up in her head. Snippets of her dream—lips curving around Enochian syllables and the spill of blood on pale flesh—are overlaid with crime scene photos of the Miller boy, his corpse purple and bloated. It’s the case, that’s all. It’s got her all shaken up and off of her game. Mallory’s come a long way since moving up here. She’s in control now. It’s all about sealing things into vaults. Flipping the locks shut and refusing to look out of the corners of her eyes.

Running helps.

As she rounds the final corner to the parking lot, the cell phone in her pocket vibrates against her belly. Mallory slows her running to a jog and then a brisk walk as she pulls the rectangle out of her pocket. It’s Moore, her partner.

Still panting slightly, Mallory drops into a forward fold to stretch out her quads. She holds the phone to her ear with one hand and presses the call button.

“Yeah.”

“Hate to cut your torture session short, but we’ve got another one.”

“ _Shit_.” Mallory digs her fingers into her thigh. “Where?”

“The pier. They think it’s Amos.”

“They’re not sure?”

Moore hesitates. “It’s hard to tell. There’s not much left of the body.”

Mallory sucks in a hard breath, holds it for a few minutes and releases it. Her heart rate, slowing with her stillness, picks up at the thought of another crime scene so soon after the last. What nightmares is she going to have tonight? _Stop it_ , she thinks, shaking her head.

“Mal, are you still there?”

“Yeah. I’m coming in. I'll meet you there,” she says, ending the call with press of her thumb.

Mallory pushes up out of her bent position and stands there for a moment, head pounding with the shift of blood. Something flashes in her peripheral vision. A shadow shifting among the trees. The wind bites at her nose until it’s red and dripping. Mallory turns away slowly and walks back to her car. She mutters a Hail Mary on the way.

\--

Eight hours into the investigation at the pier and the physical evidence has raised more questions than answers. CSIs with the Major Crimes Section upstate, who were already in town for the Miller case, have been through the scene. They’ve found nothing. No weapons, no foot prints, no stray hairs, no leftover accelerant. The victim had been tied to one of the wood pilings and burned. Pre-mortem mutilation was likely. The wood all around the body had been painted with blood. The phrase “come and see,” written out over and over again—just like in the Miller boy’s room.

A Purple Heart medal, melted into the ribcage but still distinguishable, suggests that the victim is Amos Wheeler. The Vietnam veteran always kept his distinction pinned proudly over his left breast pocket. He’s well known around Brookings. Amos preferred to live outdoors instead of in a shelter or a group home; he said that the walls made him itchy. He worked odd jobs around town and always had a hot meal waiting for him at the diner. They’ll need dental records to confirm of course, but Mallory’s not optimistic for a negative ID. Officers have canvased the area around the marina, and no one’s reported seeing Amos since yesterday.

By mid-afternoon, the techs have cleared out and the body’s been taken to the morgue. Mallory leaves her car in the parking lot of the Marina pub and piles in with Moore to head over to the hospital. The Major Crimes detectives, officially in charge of the case as of noon, are already there meeting with the pathologist that’s been flown in.

Moore pulls the car into a spot by the front entrance of the 30-bed hospital and shuts the ignition off. They sit there for a moment in silence, Moore staring gloomily out of the window.

Mallory’s not going to interrupt his brooding. They’d made an agreement early in their partnership that they wouldn’t pry into each other’s business. Mallory had still been raw then, her heart urging her to flee back to Los Angeles and the half of herself that she’d left locked behind the doors of a psychiatric ward.

She curls her fingers down to feel the white scar tissue in the palm of her left hand—a blood pact. A promise whispered in the dark.

Moore sighs heavily and slaps his hands against the steering wheel, tearing Mallory out of her thoughts. It’s an opening; permission to prod.

Mallory slants her eyes over and raises a brow at her partner’s scowl. Moore’s olive complexion is a little pale. “What?" she asks. "Don’t tell me that you’re going to pass out already.” He’s never liked the gory part of the job.

“Fuck,” Moore says, right hand twitching toward his coat pocket like he wants to pull out a cigarette. “Let’s just get this over with. Don’t let me hit Anderson, I can’t afford another suspension.”

Mallory lets her lips curl up in a half-hearted smirk. Her head’s too fuzzy to manage a chuckle. “I think he's sweet on you, John.”

Moore grunts in response.

One of the detectives from upstate, Anderson, has taken to calling Moore “pretty boy.” It’s not an inaccurate nickname, Moore’s got the kind of bone structure that makes a person sit up and take notice. He’s also gayer than a maypole. The combination is dangerous in a small town. Some of the narrowminded assholes on the force like to give him guff about it. Moore’s taken to doling out warning punches.

He’s been ignoring Anderson for the most part, a little name calling is expected in inter-departmental investigations, but the guy’s gone above and beyond to be a dick since he arrived. He’s taken every opportunity available to remind them that they’re only being kept in the loop as a courtesy.

It rankles. They may be “Podunk” cops, but they have knowledge of the town and of the people that the special investigations team doesn’t.

Moore pops a mint from the stash in his cupholder and reaches for his door handle. Mallory follows him out of the vehicle and they make their way inside.

The head nurse has been expecting them. He escorts them to the staff elevator and swipes his card to give them access to the morgue.

“One of the detectives downstairs has our spare elevator key, you’ll have to come back up with him,” the nurse warns, backing away from the closing doors. Mallory gives him a little wave of thanks and watches his face disappear from view.

The elevator starts to dip. Moore slouches casually against the hand rail to one side of the car. He keeps his eyes glued to the descending numbers on the display panel. “You know, Chet’s a nice guy…” he says, apropos of nothing.

Mallory blinks at the side of his face. “What?”

“You know, I just thought that if you ever wanted to go out, wear something other than a sports bra…Chet would probably be interested.”

“Who—are you talking about the nurse?” she asks, confused.

Moore shakes his head. “Yeah, Mal. The nurse. The guy who was just checking you out.”

“ _What?_ ”

Moore shrugs apologetically, then says, “you’ve been moodier than usual lately. When was the last time that you got laid? You’ve been here for two years and I’ve never seen you out with another person.”

Mallory holds up her hands, to say OK, stop. “I’m really _not_ interested in discussing my sex life right now.”

“I just wondered if the permanent uni-boob was a sign of depression.”

“Oh my god. _Stop_ ,” Mallory hisses. “We’re on our way to an autopsy.”

Moore’s face turns grim. “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

The tiny autopsy suite off the side of the hospital’s morgue is a little bit crowded with Mallory, Moore, Anderson, his partner Samuels and the two victims' remains lined up side by-side. The pathologist, a serious looking woman who introduces herself as Dr. LaVeau, takes it in stride. She hands out surgical masks “for the smell,” and gets to work detailing the injuries to each body.

“Cameron Miller, aged twelve,” Dr. LaVeau starts, standing over the bloated corpse on the left. “Found dead at six a.m., November 17, 2019. Liver temperature was taken by the Corner and time of death was estimated to be five hours before discovery. The body was found in what appeared to be advanced stages of decomposition, note the bloating and discoloration. Blood tests have since indicated that this boy was very ill.”

She lifts a hand to reveal a circular wound on Cameron's palm. “Clostridial myonecrosis entered through punctures to the hands and the bottoms of the feet. The bacteria spread up the limbs to the torso. Lung, liver and kidney specimens indicate that cause of death was multiple organ failure secondary to septic shock.”

“You want to dumb that down to plain English for us, doc?” Anderson asks.

LaVeau nods. Her eyes are very dark and steady. “Cameron developed an advanced case of gas gangrene. This kind of bacteria is normally soil-borne. How it found it’s way into his wounds, I do not know. No debris was found when swabs were taken. The killer could have scratched him and transmitted it that way, but I found no signs of a struggle.”

Anderson starts to open his mouth, but LaVeau keeps talking. “The aggressiveness of Cameron’s infection is another anomaly. Without treatment, death from gas gangrene usually occurs in 48 hours.”

Samuels pipes up then, voice muffled through his mask. “Those wounds kind of look like that stuff you see people passing off as miracles. What’s the word? Stigma…stigmas—”

“Stigmata,” Moore supplies.

Mallory’s heart stutters. Memories of priests and holy water pressed in the shape of a cross to her forehead hammer at the doors in her mind. The lights flicker for a moment, shadows coalescing in the corners of the room. Nobody else notices.

_Stop it._

“So, the killer could be some kind of religious fanatic,” Anderson says. “But why target the boy? Was he convenient or—”

“Cameron played Jesus in the Easter play last year,” Mallory interjects, speaking for the first time since they entered the room. Anderson eyeballs her like she’s a particularly interesting bug.

“Thanks for that Largess.”

“It’s Langdon.”

Anderson narrows his eyes on her face. “Thanks again for the clarification. I’d hate to misspell it on my report, but I hadn’t actually planned on including you in it.”

The slight, compounded by the unease rising in Mallory’s chest, has her fingers flexing at her sides. A tray of instruments rattles ominously. 

LaVeau clears her throat, breaking the tension. Mallory blinks. Her fingers unclench.

“You can continue your pissing contest later, lets finish this so that we can all go home and get some rest,” LaVeau says, not unkindly.

“Motel sweet motel,” Anderson mutters. He looks away from Mallory and gives the doctor a teenage grin.

LaVeau smiles wryly and shuffles around to the second set of remains. “Dental records confirm that the second body, found at seven forty-five a.m. November 19, 2019, belongs to Amos Wheeler.”

Mallory and Moore deflate.

“Nicks to the hyoid suggest that the victim’s throat was cut. Exsanguination, however, was not the cause of death.” LaVeau lifts a kidney basin and shows them something pulpy looking. “Soot deposits in the lungs show that the victim was still alive when he was set on fire.”

Moore swipes a hand over his mouth. There’s a slight tremor in his wrist. “Any traces of accelerant?”

Samuels raises a finger. “I believe that I can answer that. The techs emailed a preliminary report before you guys got here. Tests done at the scene were negative for common accelerants. They’ve sent a few samples from the body back to Bend for chromatographic analysis.”

He lowers the mask from his face and blows out a breath. “I have no idea what that means but they assure me that if any traces of fuel are present, they’ll find them.”

Passingly, Mallory notes that Samuels could give Moore and LaVeau a run for their money for most attractive person in the room.

If Samuels notices her attention to his features, he doesn’t show it.

 _It’s better that way_ , Mallory thinks. Despite Moore’s concerns about her neglected libido, Mallory knows that trying to get a leg over anyone would only make her mood worse. She’s tried in the past and found her body completely unwilling to cooperate.

One man has held the key to her passion since she was a fumbling teenager with urges she couldn’t explain.

Mallory’s breath hitches. He used to hold her with such tenderness when he slanted his mouth over hers, tongues sliding filthily against each other. She touches her scar again and feels her nipples stiffen.

Samuels definitely notices that. An eagle spotting the silver belly of a fish, his eyes snap from a spot over her shoulder to the front of her white button up shirt. Mallory tucks a piece of hair that’s escaped her bun behind her ear and turns away, crossing her arms over her chest.

LaVeau finishes detailing the findings of her examination. “As with Cameron, there were no signs of defensive wounds.” She points to a set of x-rays illuminated behind her. “There could have been scratches to the tissue that burned, but the films show no cuts or stress fractures to the bones of Amos' hands and arms.”

She darts a careful look at each of them. “Now, I’m no detective, but it’s mighty suspicious to me that an old solider wouldn’t fight an attacker.”

“Sedated maybe?” Mallory says, voice raspy from her arousal. 

“Tox screen on the liver was negative.”

Anderson runs a hand through his hair. “You’re fucking with me.”

LaVeau raises a brow at him. “It’s unlikely, but the killer could have used an inhalant anesthetic that’s not metabolized by the liver. It would take frequent doses to keep a man this size sedated.”

Moore nods and pulls out the battered flipbook that he keeps for field notes. “If you can give me the names of the drugs that could have been used, we can ask around upstairs to see if anything’s gone missing from the Operating Room.”

Fifteen minutes and one uncomfortable elevator ride later, Mallory and Moore are back on the main level questioning the hospital administrator. Anderson and Samuels begged off, happy to leave them to their “grunt work.”

It turns out to be a fruitless endeavor anyway. Everything’s accounted for.

\--

The diner on third is mostly deserted when Moore pushes the door open and ushers Mallory inside. They claim their usual booth in the back corner and spread out on each side of the table, coats discarded and case files scattered across the Formica.

“Long day?” Ariel asks, appearing in that uncanny way of his. He pours them each a steaming cup of coffee from the carafe in his hand.

Moore sighs and leans forward to press his forehead into the apron around Ariel’s waist. “You have no freaking idea,” he groans.

Ariel pets a hand through his husband’s hair and tuts sympathetically. His eyes twinkle at Mallory. “I take it there were no incidents with that other detective today?”

Mallory smiles over the lip of her coffee cup. “He was very well behaved.” She takes a small sip of dark roast and feels her shoulders relax. “You could tell him to butt out of my love life though.”

Ariel drops his gaze to the top of Moore’s head and yanks on his hair. “I told you not to lead with the sports bra,” he scolds.

Moore sits back and shrugs. “It needed to be said.”

Mallory rolls her eyes. “You’re both terrible friends.”

Dinner is two clubhouse sandwiches with fries. Mallory and Moore eat in comfortable silence, kicking each other under the table when one of them hoards the ketchup and slurping their coffee in between bites. They let Ariel clear away their plates and get down to business reading through the case files that Anderson so graciously loaned them [read Moore pilfered from the station on the way over]. 

Moore looks away from the photos of Cameron Miller’s bedroom and rubs his eyes tiredly. “What do they want us to ‘come and see?’ Does the killer think that they’re some sort of Thomas Harris villain?”

Mallory pulls the pen that she’s been chewing out of her mouth and thinks about how to phrase her intuitive leap. She’s had an inkling of what the phrase referred to since Samuels mentioned stigmata.

“I think that Samuels was on to something with the religion thing,” she says eventually. “Come and see is a bible reference.” She turns the search results on her phone toward Moore and recites, “Revelation 6:1, 'And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see.'”

Moore frowns consideringly, impressed. “How did you make the connection?”

Mallory swallows dryly and fidgets with the evidence report in front of her. She doesn’t like to share things about her past. “My grandmother was very religious.”

Moore scrolls further down the Wikipedia page that Mallory has open. “So…what? The killer’s trying to open these so called ‘seals’ to bring about the apocalypse?”

Mallory points to the notes that she’s made on a napkin. "The first seal is opened by the lamb. Some people think that the lamb is supposed to be Jesus Christ.”

Understanding sparks in Moore’s eyes. “Cameron Miller played Jesus in the Easter play.”

Mallory nods, expression sober. “Revelation 6:2 says, 'And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.' Conquest, also known as Pestilence, is the first horseman of the apocalypse.”

Moore taps his fingers against the table thoughtfully. “The gangrene fits with Pestilence.”

“I think they were more literal with Amos,” Mallory says, voice intent. “They chose a veteran to represent War. Burning him alive might have just been…punishment? Or cleansing?”

Moore tilts his head. “No, I think it’s more concrete than that. Amos served in Vietnam. It could be a reference to napalm or to that monk who lit himself on fire. Maybe the killer's also a vet."

Mallory adds their ideas to her list, pleased that Moore hasn’t dismissed her as a crackpot. Moore finishes reading the Wikipedia article and says, “we should talk to the Chief about instituting a curfew. If we’re right, then there’s going to be more murders. Question is, are we dealing with one killer or two.”

“Or four,” Mallory murmurs. “Four horseman, four killers, four M.O.s.”

“ _Christ_ ,” Moore swears. “Not-it for telling Anderson that theory.”

Mallory chews a fingernail nervously. “It could be nothing. A coincidence.” Moore hears what she’s not saying.

“But you don’t think it is.”

Mallory thinks about the shadows that she’s been seeing and feels a niggling in her gut. “No, I don’t.”

Moore drops Mallory off at her car at the pier around ten p.m. He makes her promise to text him as soon as she gets home. They can't be too careful with killers running amok. 

Mallory accuses him of going soft and he threatens to burn her sports bras. _The bastard_. 

\--

Mallory dreams about the chanting again. And this time she sees the face of the man with the knife.

It’s Michael.

She calls for him, but he doesn’t respond. He just keeps cutting those lines up his arms. _Michael?_ This time he looks at her.

His eyes are a blue blaze in the hazy landscape of the dream. Blood seeps across the floor, penning Mallory in. Michael smiles, lips stretching wide and teeth glinting.

He plunges the blade into his heart.

Mallory screams. She tries to reach for him and the dream crumbles.

She wakes, arms straining into the cold air.

It takes her a moment to register the ringing of her cellphone. Mallory sits up and checks the time on the call display. Three a.m. The number isn’t one she recognizes, but she pushes the call button in case it’s Anderson or Samuels with news on the case.

“Hello.”

“Is this Mallory Langdon?”

“Yes, who am I speaking to?”

“This is Dr. Karen Hopple, I’m the director of Cherry Hill Manor in Los Angeles. You’re listed as the contact for one of our patients, Michael Langdon.”

Mallory feels sweat trickle down her back. “Yes, he’s my brother.” They’re fraternal twins, two minutes apart.

Dr. Hopple clears her throat. “I regret to inform you that Michael’s left the facility. There was an incident at dinnertime. Michael injured himself and required transport to the hospital. He escaped en-route.”

Mallory’s head spins. She manages shallow sips of air past the fist squeezing her chest.

“Hello? Are you there? Police are searching the vicinity—"

She hits the end call button.

The curtains are open in her bedroom and moonlight streams though the window. Mallory sits there for a long time, sweat cooling as her heart pounds away. 

She lifts her palm, skin otherworldly in the white-blue light, and sees that her scar's turned a livid red. 

_Something wicked this way comes_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry about the wait. Writers block and a cold hit me hard this week. This chapter focuses on backstory. I'll return to the action next chapter. Apologies if the tenses are fucked.

Sitting at her kitchen table, fully dressed, a wool-wrapped numbness settles into Mallory’s head. The house creaks and groans around her—floorboards, pipes and ducts expanding as the temperature climbs from its nighttime low. 

It’s been two hours since Dr. Hopple called about Michael. A half-empty glass of whiskey sits at Mallory’s elbow because certain tastes are hereditary.

She pulls her hands away from the old leather-bound bible that she has yet to open and picks up her drink. The rest of the amber liquid slides down smooth. The burn in her chest isn’t enough to keep her from getting lost in her memories.

\--

Constance Langdon had raised her grandchildren with an iron fist that clutched either a cigarette or a crystal tumbler of Jack. Her other hand had hardly left the cross around her neck.

She'd been a superstitious woman. When Michael and Mallory were old enough to read, they'd been required to spend an hour each day reading Scripture lest they be led down a path of damnation like their rapist father. They'd known nothing of their mother, only that she must have existed.

The twins' bond to each other had flourished under the cold conditions of their upbringing. Mallory had often been confined to the mirrored closet for knocking over Constance's antiques. Michael had sat outside of the door each and every time. He'd twined his pinky with Mallory's under the door jamb and had sung to her while she'd cried. They'd made promises to never leave each other.

Constance had said that the mirrors promoted reflection. 

They were eleven the first time that she caned Michael’s palms. He'd stolen a chocolate bar from the grocery store to share with Mallory for their birthday. They hadn't been allowed sugar.

Michael hadn't cried out when the cane had lashed his skin, but Mallory had known that it hurt him. Blue eyes that had used to shine so bright at her had gone dull and glassy. That night, she'd snuck into Michael’s room and had curled around his stiff back.

Mallory hadn't cared if he wanted to be tough. She'd wrapped her fingers around his swollen hands and had leaned over him to press a kiss to each palm. To their shared amazement, the angry marks there had faded away with the touch of her lips to his flesh.

Mallory had been confused by what it meant. Michael had assured her that it was a gift—that she was special. He'd started manifesting his own abilities shortly after that.

The things that Michael had been able to do were scary, dark. The neighbour’s cat had taken a swipe at him and he'd snapped it’s neck just by looking at it. He'd been endlessly fascinated with his ability to light things on fire.

The flex of his fingers was the only warning that Constance had received when she'd threatened to cut Mallory’s tangled hair off with the kitchen scissors. One minute she'd been waving the shears around, ranting about how cleanliness was next to godliness, and the next her favourite painting of Jesus had gone up in flames.

That stunt, and the rain that Mallory had conjured to douse the blaze, had convinced Constance that her grandchildren were possessed by the devil. At her request, priests came to the house on Sundays to scream at Michael and Mallory in Latin and paint them with holy water.

It had burned.

One particular priest had liked to let his hand linger on fourteen year old Mallory’s shoulder. Michael hadn't been blind to her discomfort. He'd gouged the priest's eye out with a pencil. The visits had stopped after that.

Thoroughly frightened, Constance had chosen to keep her distance from them. She'd spent days on end in her room. When they'd run out of toast and eggs and Kraft Dinner to eat, Mallory had learned to follow the recipes in the books on the kitchen counter. Michael, who had always been better at cursive, had forged Constance’s signature for the cheques that they'd given to the grocery store clerk. 

Time passed and they got older.

Michael grew into himself nicely. At sixteen, he'd been an object of infatuation for every girl in their grade.

It had hardly mattered to him. He'd followed Mallory everywhere, looming over her shoulder and herding her from class to class. She'd wanted to dismiss the behaviour as separation anxiety—they hadn't exactly had much experience socializing with other people—but the hovering had soon taken on a different tone.

Michael had started stepping closer; pressing himself against her back or side, sliding his nose into her hair. His body heat and his brooding eyes had made Mallory’s insides ache. Her reaction had been troubling. She'd known that it was wrong to feel that way about her bother—to want to push closer, reciprocate. People burned in Hell for that kind of relationship.

To protect them both, she'd avoided Michael as much as possible. She'd joined after school clubs and made friends with other girls in their classes.

The staring had only intensified. Michael had started leaving her gifts: flower petals pressed between the pages of her textbooks, paper cranes that came to life when she touched them, wounded animals that required her healing touch. She'd tried not to think too hard about the last one.

Self-loathing and want had warred inside of Mallory. She'd liked Michael’s attention. Had craved it. It had made her physically sick to think about his eyes turning toward another person, but guilt had kept her from acknowledging him. She'd pulled further away instead. 

Michael had tolerated it until he hadn't.

Seventeen and desperately hormonal, Mallory had had the great idea to let a boy from the basketball team kiss her under the bleachers at school. Michael had been waiting for her when she got home. 

He'd taken one look at her kiss swollen lips and had sprung up from where he'd been seated on the end of her bed. Face thunderous, he'd backed her up against the wall and had held her there with the cage of his body.

Blood had rung in Mallory’s ears when Michael had trembled in front of her. He hadn't used magic to hold her still. The disappointment and rage in his eyes had been enough to have her gut knotting and her muscles freezing up.

She’d hurt him.

The tears that had streaked down his ruddy cheeks had seared her soul. Voice breaking, Michael had asked if she enjoyed tormenting him—punishing him for loving her by leaving him alone in the world.

The painful gasp that Mallory had let out had had Michael leaning down to smudge the words that her treacherous heart had longed to hear against the side of her neck.

_I love you. Please don’t leave me._

A lone branch collapsing under the weight of snow, Mallory had shut her eyes and crumpled against him. It was her who crossed the line, who had rocked up on her toes and pushed her mouth against Michael’s like the air in his lung was all that she'd wanted to breathe. Michael had been quick to adapt. He’d done his best to erase the touch and taste of anyone else from her lips; every kiss had been a promise written on her skin.

This bad-wrong _thing_ became their secret. A fragile passion that had flowered in dark rooms.

Making out in private had progressed to fleeting gropes in bathrooms and sexually frustrating voyeurism. For all of Michael’s intensity, he'd refused to touch Mallory below the waist until they were of age. Nearly every night for a year, Mallory had writhed alone in her sheets, hips stuttering against her mattress, with only the heat from Michael’s eyes—and the knowledge that he'd been touching himself across the room—to spur her on.

Michael had said that their first time needed to be special, that he’d had a vision. Mallory hadn’t realized that he’d manifested the gift of sight. When she'd questioned him about it, Michael had promised that the joining of their bodies would open her own third eye. He'd said that he had so much to show her, that he’d been experimenting on his own. He’d found a new religion that explained everything.

The envy that Mallory had felt at his proclamation had been immediately replaced by shame. She’d been the one to pull away, to stop exploring their abilities with him. Hoping to rekindle their connection through shared power, she’d agreed to wait.

On their eighteenth birthday, Michael had slunk into Mallory’s bedroom in the early hours of the morning.

Mallory had come to with press of his naked skin against her back. She’d blinked at Michael over her shoulder, just making out his beautiful face and the shape of his body in the moonlight. He’d rolled her underneath him, hand running from her quivering belly, up the dips of her ribs, over her breasts to her neck. Thumb tapping over Mallory’s pulse, Michael had dropped down to eat at her mouth before spreading her thighs and petting between her legs. The look on his face when she'd wet his hand with arousal had had Mallory feeling like she was going to burst out of her skin. Michael had been destroyed. Voice wrecked, he'd confessed to being beguiled and ruined for anyone but her.

The first finger that he'd slipped into Mallory had snatched her breath and her desire to do anything but urge him for more. The cries that she’d bitten back and the undulation of her hips hadn’t moved him. Michael had taken his time opening her for his cock. The rightness, the confidence that had been in his stare had helped Mallory through the pain of the stretch.

When Michael had finally lined himself up and pushed inside of her, Mallory had felt something snap together at the centre of her being—two halves made whole. The joy in Michael’s expression had been breathtaking. Mallory had arched into the heat of his body and given him everything; her belief, her vulnerability, the heart bleeding in her chest.

He’d chanted her name, hips rocking in an inexperienced grind. Mallory hadn't noticed or cared. She'd scored his back with her nails and begged. She'd wanted to fly, drift away, but Michael had held her pinned.

The rippling of her inner muscles had had Michael grasping her sweaty hand in his own and opening the skin of their palms with his magic. He'd ground their wounds together, face intent, and repeated, “my blood, your blood,” until his eyes went black.

The air had stilled. Electric resonance had buzzed around their heads. Mallory's pupils had dilated. Something in her mind had yawned open. The tension that she’d been feeling at the base of her spine had expanded and snapped. 

While Michael had mounted his own orgasm, she'd floated—constellations and a riot of colours behind her eyes.

“You’ll see now,” he'd panted next to her ear. “You’ll see what we were meant for.” Mallory had missed the warning. She'd already been mostly asleep.

What Mallory came to learn in the days and weeks following their first union, was that the door that Michael had opened inside of her mind had been keeping some truly terrible things contained.

Shadows had appeared at the edges of her vision. She'd started hearing a voice. At all hours of the day, her train of thought had been bombarded by a bass whisper.

She'd gone to Michael, crying and terrified of what she'd been experiencing, and he’d plied her with drugging kisses and nonsense words. Sex became a comfort. A drug. If Mallory was feeling anxious, Michael would fuck it out of her. “Don’t be afraid,” he’d say, lips brushing against her furrowed brow, “father’s speaking to you.”

The bible that he’d pressed between her hands after the fourth or fifth time had had a reversed pentagram on the cover. Mallory had realized then that Michael had been worshipping a completely different father.

The few passages that she'd read in Michael's Satanic bible had been incredibly disturbing. Notes in red pen had danced along the margins. Constance had gotten to him. Michael had believed that he was the Great Red Dragon, the Antichrist, and that Mallory was the Woman Clothed with the Sun; two figures from the Book of Revelation foretold to bring Hell on earth.

Michael had laughed it off when Mallory asked him about it. He'd said that it was just a metaphor. _“Don’t be so literal, Mallory.”_ But the cracks in his psyche had started to show.

He'd avoided any talk about their future and graduation. He'd muttered to himself, claiming that ordinary people on the bus were demons, and had tried to flush Mallory’s birth control down the toilet. The gifts that he'd left for her after that fight were mangled—animals, skewered and broken, wreathed with origami roses.

It all came to a head the day that he tried to feed Mallory Constance’s heart, still warm from her chest, to increase the vitality of her womb.

Mallory had fled the sight of their grandmother’s body, spread over the dining table and sectioned like a Thanksgiving turkey. She'd barricaded herself in a bathroom and called the police. Michael had sung to her, tearful and off key, until officers had arrived to drag him from the house kicking and screaming. Desire to protect Mallory or true insanity had kept him from lashing out with his magic. 

Constance’s estate had allowed Mallory to hire Michael the best lawyer. At the time, the death penalty had still been legal in California.

He'd committed a heinous murder, but Mallory couldn’t live in a world where he didn’t draw breath. Her love for him, however tarnished, had already been carved on the inside of her ribs.

The judge who presided over Michael's case had declared him non compos mentis. While Mallory had been walking across the graduation stage to receive her high school diploma, Michael had been acclimating to a forensic psychiatric facility in East Los Angeles.

“How could you,” he’d hissed at Mallory through the glass during their first visit. “How could you do this to me?”

Mallory had swallowed her tears, eyes and throat too swollen to cry any more. “No, Michael,” she’d croaked. “How could you do this to us?”

Untethered and alone, Mallory had tried to figure out what to do with herself. She'd stopped practicing magic, had shunned any and all kinds of religion. Gradually, the shadows and the voice in her head had receded.

The decision to cut down her visits with Michael had stopped the hallucinations completely.

An officer who'd taken to checking up on Mallory after the trial had offered to get her started at the police academy if she wasn’t set on college. Apparently, personal trauma made for more compassionate officers.

Mallory had passed the entrance exam and the physical with flying colours. She'd spent the next nine years after the academy working her way up from traffic to beat to financial crimes. Looking for patterns had come easy to her. She'd never used magic, but intuition was hard to shut off.

Her routine during those years had been simple. She worked, came home to the apartment that she'd bought after selling Constance’s house, and slept. Professional success had been easier to obtain than a personal life. Making friends who hadn't been interested in talking about her "crazy brother" had been difficult since most of the detachment had known about the trial.

Intimate partners had been a whole other issue. Close contact with other people left Mallory wracked with searing pain and the need to recoil. After the tenth failed one-night stand, she'd cracked.

Fed up, Mallory had marched down to Michael’s facility. She'd been half way through registering at the front desk when a nurse had informed her that Michael was in the infirmary for slicing himself up with a broken plastic spoon. Allegedly, he'd cut up his arms and drawn symbols on the floor with his blood.

Mallory couldn't help but feel ashamed when she'd seen her twin laid out on a stretcher, pale and sedated. He'd changed so much. The hard planes of his face and the length of his hair had been unfamiliar. She hadn't been able to stop herself from stroking through the blond stubble that had coated his jaw.

Michael had stirred at the touch of her fingers, coming awake with slow blinks of his lashes. The minute that he'd focused on Mallory's face, he’d smiled, expression vacant, and had whispered something that she couldn’t quite hear. Curious, Mallory had dropped her head closer.

That had been a mistake.

Immediately, Michael had had her hair seized in an iron grip. He'd pushed his shoulders up from the stretcher to shape the words, “silence falls in heaven when he sitteth on the throne,” hot and humid against her ear.

Mallory had struggled out of his grasp, screaming, and he'd gone for her wrist instead.

Holding eye contact, Micheal had licked a slow line over her scar, revolting and sultry, before the nurses had physically separated them.

Mallory had dreamt of snakes that night. Snakes in her bed and on her body, weighing her down with their coils until she couldn’t breathe.

Two days later, she'd requested the only available transfer to the Homicide squad in Brookings, Oregon.

\--

_RIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG_

Mallory swipes a finger through the drop of whiskey on her bottom lip and surfaces from her trance. She doesn't hesitate before answering the phone. She's already received the worst news imaginable.

“Langdon.”

“You out of bed?” Moore asks.

“Yep.”

“Of course you are." He sighs as if she’d been the one to call him. "Rough night?”

Mallory ignores the question. “I could use a ride to the station. Let’s get our facts straight before Anderson and Samuels crawl out of their motel and tell us how to do our jobs.”

“Yee-haw," John says, tone filled with fake enthusiasm. “My thoughts exactly. You’re driving next week though. I deserve alcohol before—” a hesitation as he checks his watch, “—six a.m. too.”

Mallory's ears burn with embarrassment. "Fuck off," she tells him. She hangs up the phone.

Rising from the table, Mallory puts her glass in the sink and throws the bible into her work bag before she can think too much about it. She slides her feet into her boots in the entryway and shakes her head, trying to relax.

It’s a terrible, horrible coincidence.

Michael has nothing to do with the murders. There’s no point in scaring herself stupid. He’s her brother, not the boogeyman. California State Police will probably arrest him wandering aimlessly down the side of the highway.

She tells herself that at least ten more times before John’s car pulls up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait! I decided to make this a two-part update. I hope you enjoy :)

It’s quiet at the station when Moore and Mallory push through the front doors. Shift change for uniformed officers was half an hour ago. As the only two detectives in the detachment, they’re not required to trade off with anybody. 

Mallory unzips her leather jacket in the lobby and sucks in a breath of warm air—it’s only 5ºC this morning. A bitter aroma curls up in her nasal passages and forces a sigh of relief from her lungs. Carol, bless her, has already got the coffee pot going in the staff room. The police station couldn’t run without her. A good receptionist is an officer’s first line of defense from the public and narcolepsy. There’s a betting pool that the detachment burns down the day that she retires. Looking to hand her the match, Moore stops at the front desk to flirt obnoxiously with the sixty-something woman.

“Carol, my darling, what’s the gossip today?” he asks, perching his elbows on the waist height barrier around her desk.

Carol looks over the top of her round tortoise shell glasses and frowns. Her lipstick is lurid red. “Don’t even try it,” she says, voice rough from years of heavy smoking. “You’re not getting anything out of me about those detectives from out of town.” She taps a sharp nail on the desk beside her keyboard. “You put those files that you stole right back where they came from.”

Mallory cringes. Nothing gets by Carol. 

Moore puts a hand over his heart in faux hurt. “What kind of man do you take me for? I would _never_ ask you to give out unauthorized information. You wound me, Carol, truly.”

The sexagenarian raises an unimpressed brow. Moore doesn’t let it discourage him. “Just out of curiosity,” he says, “you wouldn’t happen to know if either of them has had any phone calls this morning, would you?”

The question uses up the last of Carol’s patience. She curls an arthritic hand around her stapler and bares her teeth. “Beat it or I’m calling your husband,” she grits.

Mallory can’t watch anymore. “So sorry, Carol,” she says, gripping Moore’s arm. “He won’t bother you any more today.”

Moore squawks a little, but he doesn’t resist when she hauls him around the corner into the office area. He plunks himself into the chair on his side of their shared desk and kicks up his feet with a huff. “I was getting somewhere, Mal. The old cougar was about to crack.”

Mallory pushes his boots off of the desk and smirks as he pitches forward in his rolly chair. “You were getting nowhere but closer to a phone call with the Chief.”

“Ooh, kinky. Ariel doesn’t like it when I call him that outside of the bedroom.”

Moore’s hand shoots out smoothly to catch the stress ball that Mallory pitches at his head. “Chief Fleming,” she clarifies, tone caustic.

“He loves me, I’m the only other gay on the force,” Moore insists.

Mallory wrinkles her nose in disbelief. “Of course," she says. "I’m sure that he sends all his best Judies on suspension without pay.”

Moore sulks. “Okay, so maybe splitting Fox’s lip last month was a bit of a set-back," he admits. 

Mallory lets him stew, his hand rhythmically squeezing the stress ball, and occupies herself with digging the case files that they’d gone over at the diner out of her bag. The folders that Moore stole from Anderson have sticky notes stuck to the front that say “douchebag.”

“You want to write?” she asks.

Moore tosses the ball up and catches it. “Nah, your tiny hands give you better writing, even if you are a southpaw.”

Mallory tilts her head in concession. She wanders over to the white board kitty-corner to their desk and grabs a marker. The cap squeaks when she pulls it off.

“Okay,” she exhales, “the four horsemen.” She lists them in order: Pestilence _née_ Conquest, War, Famine and Death. Cameron Miller’s name goes beside Pestilence, Amos Wheeler’s beside War. Mallory changes felt colours to add in the causes of death and the victims’ background information. When she’s finished, she backs up to lean against the desk beside Moore.

Moore eyes the list seriously, stress ball forgotten. “How are we thinking that the murderer is going to pull off Famine?” he asks.

Mallory chews her lip. “He’s been literal so far…but how would he represent hunger?”

“Starve someone,” Moore offers. “Or torch the only grocery store in town.”

Mallory looks over at him from the corner of her eye. “He already used fire once. Do you really think that he’d do it again?”

Moore frowns, uncertain. “Locusts seemed harder to come by.”

Mallory ignores the snark in his tone and gets up to jot down their ideas. “What was the timeline between victims?” she asks.

Moore flips open the case files to check the time of death on both victims. “Just over forty-eight hours,” he says.

“Tomorrow then,” Mallory whispers. Her eyes scan their poor attempt at connect the dots on the whiteboard. “He’s already hunting.”

\--

Another hour and thirty minutes pass before Anderson and Samuels show up, gas station coffee in hand.

Anderson walks by Moore and Mallory’s desk and throws his heavy wool coat down at his borrowed station. The stolen files have already been tucked back into the filing cabinet next to them—sans sticky notes.

Samuels heads straight there and digs out said folders. None the wiser, he sits himself down and opens the one on top to start reading.

Anderson takes a sip of his coffee and turns to Moore. “You two were here bright and early,” he says. “Any luck at the hospital last night?”

Moore shakes his head. “No,” he tells him. “Everything was accounted for.” His eyes assess the other man’s expression. Anderson seems relaxed—too relaxed. He blinks placid blue eyes and keeps drinking his coffee. When he doesn’t immediately jump on them for shoddy police work, Moore continues, tentatively, “we talked a little bit last night and Mallory had a theory about the meaning of the killer’s message.”

“Oh, really?” Anderson says. He turns his eyes in Mallory’s direction. “Do tell.”

Mallory clears her throat. “I mentioned yesterday that Cameron Miller played Jesus in last years Easter play. That got me thinking about religion and the bible, more specifically the Book of Revelation.” Reaching for her bag, Mallory pulls out the old bible inside. She hesitates for only a second when she sees the crumbling rose petals pressed between the cover and the first page. Swallowing harshly, Mallory flips to the back and leafs through to the appropriate page. “And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see,” she reads aloud.

Anderson’s eyes are still fixed on her when she glances up from the page. He looks bored. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?" he asks.

“The passage refers to the start of the apocalypse," Mallory says. She nods to the whiteboard. “We connected the MO of both murders to the opening of the first and second seals by two of the four horsemen, Pestilence and War.” The squeak of a chair lets her know that Samuels has tuned into the conversation. He smiles at her a little, encouraging, and purses his lips in thought.

Mallory fights not to fidget under all of the attention. “We think that he’ll keep killing until he’s done all four horsemen.”

It’s quiet for a moment as everyone digests what’s been said. That is, until Anderson busts a gut. He laughs so hard that he has to bend over and brace a hand against his knee.

“I couldn’t hold it in anymore,” he gasps. “You think that the killer’s on a mission from the devil to end the world?” He guffaws. Samuels looks uncomfortable, but he doesn’t reprimand his partner for his behaviour.

Moore and Mallory exchange a tense look. “No,” Mallory says. She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “I don’t actually think that the killer is on a mission to end the world. I do, however, think that a person who kills two people and leaves cryptic messages in blood is not of sound mind.”

Anderson straightens up and wipes tears from his eyes. “I uh, appreciate your theorizing _Langdon_.” He forces the corners of his lips down. “I’ll definitely keep the apocalypse angle in mind. In the meantime, why don’t you take a load off and let us puzzle this one out.”

It happens without warning. Mallory’s eye twitches and Anderson’s coffee jumps up out of his cup and slops down the front of his suit.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses. He sets the cup down on his desk and pulls the steaming fabric of his blazer away from his chest. Samuels jolts out of his chair to grab him some paper towels.

Mallory’s heart beats a wild tattoo in her chest. _Get a grip_ , she berates herself. She closes her eyes and blows out a breath. Moore stands and puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t believe us if you want,” he tells Anderson. “But at least let us talk to the Chief about instituting a curfew. This guy isn’t done. There are going to be more victims.”

Anderson waves a dismissive hand, too engrossed with the stain on his shirt. “Whatever, just get out of my hair. You’re not needed. Go do some sleuthing at the bowling alley.”

Moore doesn’t need another excuse to flee the man’s proximity. He grabs the keys to his car and strides off to the lobby, presumably to talk to Carol about an appointment with the Chief.

Mallory gathers the photocopies that they’d made of the restricted case files and her bible before following. She goes to pass by a returning Samuels and feels him grab her arm. He keeps his face forward and murmurs, too soft for Anderson to hear, “the lab in Bend called this morning. The chromatograph found absolutely no traces of accelerant.” Message delivered, he releases her and continues on to his partner with his wad of paper towel.

\--

Shut out of the murder investigation, Moore and Mallory spend the day following up on a string of B&E robberies from the week before.

They catch a break reviewing the security tapes from the hardware store and manage to make an arrest before 3 p.m. They bring the guy in for booking and make their 4:00 p.m. meeting with the Chief with time to spare. 

Brookings’ Chief of Police, Quentin Fleming, has little patience for beating around the bush. A gay man elected into a position of authority, he’s learned to play hard ball to be taken seriously by city council and the public.

Moore and Mallory are barely seated in front of his desk when he drawls in his obvious Tennessee accent, “what on God’s green earth do you want, Moore.”

“Chief,” Moore greets him. “Thank you for making time in your busy schedule to meet with us today.”

“Oh pish,” Fleming says. “We both know that I had nothing but budget requests to review this afternoon. _What do you want?_ ”

Mallory leans forward in her seat. “We think that it would be prudent to enforce a curfew until Amos and Cameron’s killer is caught.” Shrewd blue eyes narrow on her face. “We understand that you don’t want to incite panic,” she says, “but we don’t know enough about this guy and we’re closing in on another forty-eight hours since the last murder.”

Fleming smooths his tie. “That’s his window I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Chief hums, considering. “We certainly don’t need any more good people turning up dead.” He steeples his fingers under his chin. “I’ll speak to the Mayor and see what I can do.”

“That’s all we’re asking,” Moore says.

Fleming frowns at his hopeful tone. “Don’t you be kicking up a fuss if your curfew is rejected.”

Moore pulls Mallory out of her chair, ready to retreat before the Chief changes his mind. He does a poor job of repressing his smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Sir.”

At a loss for anything else to do, they go to the pub. They’re still technically on duty until 7 p.m., but neither of them cares to mention it.

Moore slides a beer over to Mallory and seats himself across from her in their booth. “To our arrest and Anderson’s stained shirt,” he says, raising his bottle for a cheers.

Mallory picks up her own bottle and clinks it against his. She swallows a mouthful of crisp Lager and tries not to feel too discouraged about their dismissal from the case. “I hope that they know what they’re doing,” she says.

Moore grunts, “fuck ‘em. Our theory was solid. They’ll come crawling back when they find the next body.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Mallory sighs.

They drink in silence for a moment before Moore asks, “do you want to tell me what had you in the bottle of whiskey under your sink this morning.”

The question makes Mallory clench her teeth. The urge to confide in a friend is strong, but the risk isn’t worth it. Moore might laugh at her like Anderson—or worse, consider her a suspect—if he knew the extent of her personal history with devil worshipers. Still, John might be the only true friend that she has. She doesn’t want to freeze him out entirely. “Just family stuff,” she hedges.

The surprised look on Moore’s face makes Mallory feel shitty. Was she really that bad at sharing?

“I get that,” Moore says eventually. “I don’t talk to half of mine.” He takes a long pull on his beer. “Not my choice.”

Mallory frowns empathetically. “I don’t talk to mine either,” she admits.

Moore tips his bottle to her. “That’s probably why we’re cops.”

“Someone once told me that personal trauma makes us more compassionate on the job,” Mallory says. She picks at the label on her bottle. “Sometimes I just feel like there’s something buried deep inside of me that’s clawing to get out. Something so repressed that it’s hard to tell where it ends and I begin.”

It's silent for a minute. “Are you sure that you’re not just gay?” 

Mallory snorts and the carbonation in her drink tickles the inside of her nose. “It would be so much easier if I were," she says.

“Think of all of the cruises that we could take," Moore enthuses. He launches into a retelling of his and Ariel’s last Caribbean cruise and Mallory listens, genuinely interested to know how they beat out six other couples for the distinction of Best Inappropriate Shirt Collection.

A special bulletin cuts into the music playing on the old radio behind the bar at 6:30 p.m. It’s the Mayor. Moore waves a long arm to get the bartender to turn it up and they listen as Myrtle Snow advises the public to stay indoors after 7 p.m. It’s not a curfew exactly, just a strongly worded suggestion.

Mallory hopes that it’s better than nothing.

\--

They’re not trashed, but they're definitely not fit to drive. Mallory stands next to Moore on the sidewalk and tips her head back to watch the stars while they wait for their taxi to arrive. She's tracing the big dipper with her finger when someone shoulders into her hard.

Mallory stumbles forward, too inebriated to keep her footing, and scans around for the person who bumped into her. _What the fuck?_ The cut of her leather jacket leaves the gun and badge at her hip on display. She's short, but she's hard to miss. 

Maybe twenty feet ahead, a flash of blond hair catches her attention. Mallory spies broad shoulders and the sharp edge of a cheekbone.

Her lungs seize in her chest. The turn of a generous grin. _Don't be so literal, Mallory._ She breaks into a dead run.

“Mallory!” Moore shouts. “Where the hell are you going?!”

She keeps running. She’s almost there. He turns a corner and she skids along behind him.

“Stop!” she yells. “Michael, stop!”

He picks up his pace. He takes another right down an alley and Mallory knows that she’s got him. It’s a dead end. Pumping her arms, she puts on a burst of speed and tackles him into the brick exterior of the hobby store.

He fights, flipping around, and Mallory goes for her gun. She looks into the face at the other end of her Glock 22 and gasps, confused. 

It’s not him.

The young man in front of her looks nothing like Michael. His hair isn’t even the right shade of gold. “H-hey, lady,” he stutters, “I didn’t mean it. You can have your wallet back.”

Mallory holsters her weapon and pinches the bridge of her nose. Hallucinations aren’t a good sign. The thing with Anderson’s coffee was a mistake. She shouldn’t have used.

Exasperated, she drops her hand and eyes the kid. He looks ready to piss himself. “Mugging a police officer is never a good idea,” she says. “Just give me the wallet and get out of here.”

The kid complies. Hands shaking, he digs her beat-up wallet out of his coat, tosses it to her, and bolts out of the alley. Mallory checks and finds everything accounted for. She's just making her way back out to the sidewalk when Moore grinds to a stop in front of her.

“Jesus Christ,” he pants, thoroughly winded from his jog. “What happened?”

Mallory grimaces. Her behaviour had been erratic. “Some punk stole my wallet," she says. 

Moore pulls in a deep breath and stops clutching his side. “Did you at least get it back?”

Mallory nods and holds up said wallet. “Turns out he didn’t want my Bodyshop gift card," she jokes.

The tension breaks like she hoped that it would. Moore laughs, “you’re a crazy bitch, you know that?”

Mallory exhales, breath misting in the cool air. "I'm aware," she says. _Too aware_.

She walks the perimeter of the house and checks the locks five times when she gets home that night. She sleeps with her gun under the pillow next to her.

If she dreams, she doesn't remember.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the second part of the update. This one's a bit longer. I realize that Moore and Mallory do a lot of drinking! In my defence, all of the detectives that I love from TV and novels are raging alcoholics.

Hungover and cranky, Mallory tries not to eavesdrop on Anderson and Samuels at the station the next morning. The two detectives are hunched over their desk going over call lists and bank statements. The snippets of conversation that Mallory does catch don’t give her any hope that they’ve made progress. It sounds like they’re looking into whether or not the Millers have had anyone by the house recently; repairmen, cable technicians, babysitters—anyone who might have known the layout of the house.

Crowded around their own desk, Mallory and Moore are collating their notes on the robbery case for the state prosecutor. Or they're trying to, anyway. They keep getting distracted by the noise. The uniformed officers are restless. It’s been slow all morning. The station received it's first call of the day twenty minutes ago. The principal of the high school had requested assistance breaking up a fight. The guys who'd called dibs had all but run out of the office.

The remaining officers are currently entertaining themselves with a game of Ten Pennies. Johnson goes out early and the rest of the players dog pile her. The sound of the dispatch radio sputtering to life is lost in the cacophony.

Mallory digs a bottle of ibuprofen out of her bag and throws two capsules back with the remains of her coffee. When she looks across the room, she notices that the Rookie at the dispatch desk is listening intently to something on the radio. Her face is sheet white. Two minutes pass before the Rookie takes off her headset. As Mallory watches, she pulls in a few shallow breaths, psyching herself up. After her fifth inhale, the Rookie stands and moves over to where Anderson’s sitting.

Mallory nudges Moore with her elbow.

“Sir,” the Rookie says, calling Anderson away from his conversation with Samuels. “Velazquez and Wilson were the officers who responded to the call from the high school. They just radioed requesting forensics and detectives at the scene. Two students are dead.”

The noise cuts out like someone's pulled the plug on the music at a party. The office holds it's breath as a collective. 

Anderson looks disconcerted, but he keeps up his front of assholery. “That’s tragic,” he says, tone patronizing, “but playground knife-fights aren't my problem. Why are you bringing this to me when your own two detectives are sitting right there?” He gestures to Moore and Mallory.

“Because, sir,” the Rookie responds, body vibrating with urgency, “you’re head of the murder investigation. One of the students wrote “come and see” on the walls of the cafeteria before she bashed her head in.”

Anderson freezes, mouth gaping open in shock. _Good_ , Mallory’s thinks, _I fucking warned him_. 

Moore takes charge of the situation. “It's Sarah, right?” he asks the Rookie. She turns wide eyes to him and nods.

Moore smiles at her a little. "Okay, Sarah, you mentioned the cafeteria. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?"

Sarah fidgets with the cuffs of her uniform, clearly distressed. “Velazquez said that that's where they were fighting," she tells Moore. "He also said t-that one of the girls _ate_ parts of the other.” Uttering the words out loud is too much for Sarah. “Excuse me,” she whispers, running for the bathroom.

Moore stands and pulls on his jacket. “You hear that?” he hisses at Anderson. He runs his hands through his hair. “Eating people—hunger for flesh. It’s famine. _It’s the third Goddamn horseman!_ ” He marches over and pokes a finger into the other man’s chest, just once, lightly. “I don’t care if you want to play big-shot and swing your dick around,” Moore says, voice quietly intense, “but people are dying. Just fucking listen to us. We’re trying to help you.”

Mallory separates them before Moore can twist himself into a knot. The physical distance is enough for Anderson to shake himself. “Yeah,” he mutters, swallowing. Then louder, “yeah, alright. You two can come with us to the scene.”

Samuels already has his jacket on. He tosses the keys in his hand to Anderson. “You can take Moore in the SUV," he says. "I'll ride with Mallory." He looks over at her, eyes determined. "I wouldn’t mind a re-cap of your theory on the way over.”

\--

It’s chaos at the school when they arrive. The principal was forced to cancel classes for the rest of the day, so there are teenagers everywhere, milling around and waiting for rides, hoping for a glimpse of the bodies.

They’d managed to get a hold of the techs and Dr. LaVeau—all on stand-by at the motel—before leaving the station. The good doctor is already there, bent over the corpse of a teenage girl, when they find the cafeteria. LaVeau looks up from where she’s probing around a shredded opening in the girl’s abdomen and says, “good afternoon detectives. Meet Molly Davis.” She gestures over to the other body crumpled near the base of a wall. “Our other casualty is Amy Reed.”

Blood flecks the wall above Amy's strewn form in reverse constellations. “Come and see” is indeed scrawled in blood about five feet up. It's right next to the red smear where Mallory assumes that Amy bashed her head in.

Anderson, who seems to have gotten a hold of his panic, takes the scene in with cool eyes. “What have you got for us, doc?” he asks. “Is it actually cannibalism?”

LaVeau nods gravely. “These are definitely teeth marks in Molly’s abdomen. I’ll have to check Amy’s stomach contents to be sure, but someone took a bite out of this girl and kept digging until they found her insides.”

Samuels wipes a hand over his mouth. _“What the fuck,”_ he says, horrified.

Mallory’s trying to keep a level head. The setting is completely different, but the image of Molly’s body, spread out with a hole punched in the middle, is bringing up memories of Constance’s death. “Did you or the techs find any drugs near the bodies?” she asks, trying to establish motive.

Moore and LaVeau nod at her in understanding. “That was my thought too,” LaVeau says. “If someone dosed Amy with Bath Salts or PCP she could have gone into a drug-induced rage. No one’s found anything yet, but I'll definitely run a screen when I get them back to the morgue."

"Aren't Bath Salts hard to detect?" Moore asks.

LaVeau raises an eyebrow at him, surprised by his insight. "They are," she says. "However, if mass spectral confirmation fails, designer stimulants should still be considered when amphetamine exposure is suggested by positive immunoassay."

"I think I read about that in an AACC article," Moore says. "It was big deal after that attack in Miami." It's Mallory's turn to raise an eyebrow at him. Moore catches her look and frowns."What?" he asks, affronted. "I read."

"At least one of us does," Samuels says. "I caught three of those words."

LaVeau laughs, "that's alright, Cher. At least you're pretty."

Dismissed, the detectives leave LaVeau to her work and gather out of the way of the techs. “So how do you want to handle this?” Moore asks Anderson. “We've got a few witnesses to take care of and someone still needs to inform the families.” 

Anderson cranes his neck to take in the small crowd of teachers in the hallway. As if queued, one beefy man—the woodshop teacher if his leather apron is anything to go by—lets out a particularly loud wail. “Okay,” Anderson says, wincing. “Samuels and I will meet with the families. You and Langdon can take the teachers.”

Mallory suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. Anderson only thinks that he’s getting the easier job. “We’ll meet you back at the station later,” she says. “LaVeau probably won’t be finished with the bodies until tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me,” Samuels says. “I for one, can wait on the autopsies.” Gagging in remembrance of their last visit to the morgue, he asks, “do either of you know where I can get some VapoRub?”

Moore slaps his shoulder sympathetically. “There’s a pharmacy on 3rd."

\--

“I just don’t know what happened,” Mrs. Wylie, the eleventh-grade math teacher, says. “One minute the girls are arguing, pulling hair and pushing each other, and the next they’re on the floor and Molly’s screaming.”

Moore and Mallory nod patiently. All of the teachers that they’ve interviewed have said the same thing. It happened fast and without warning.

Mallory shifts on the gymnasium bench that she’s sitting on and asks, “did you happen to hear what they were fighting about? The other teachers were too far away to hear what was said.”

Mrs. Wylie looks down at the hands folded in her lap for a moment and then peeks up at them, face colouring with embarrassment. “I should have probably told the officers earlier, but the shock…” She opens her hands and holds something out to them on her palm. “They were fighting over this. Molly dropped it in the struggle. I assume that a boy gave it to her.”

Mallory blinks, eyes struggling to register what’s in front of her.

It’s an origami rose.

Time slows to a crawl. Limb heavy like she's moving through water, Mallory reaches out to touch it. 

_I love you, don’t leave me._

A whisper away from the paper, something surges through her stomach. Rage. Black, consuming rage.

Breathing hard, Mallory jerks her hand back and clutches it to her chest. Pure malice is hovering around the rose. She can’t bear to touch it.

Mrs. Wylie is looking at Mallory strangely. Moore gives her a suspicious side-eye but ultimately decides to come to her rescue. “Here, let me,” he says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out one of the blue latex gloves that the techs had given them. Moore slips it on deftly and reaches forward to take the paper flower. “It's important to preserve any fingerprints,” he tells Mrs. Wylie. “We'll have to take a set of yours for comparison.”

“Like I said, I’m sorry that I didn’t bring it up sooner,” Mrs. Wylie says. "I wasn't thinking."

Mallory swallows hard and forces herself to lower her arms. “Do you have any idea which boy might have made the rose,” she asks.

“Well, I don’t know for certain, but I’ve seen Luke Foster talking to Molly in the hallway recently,” Mrs. Wylie says.

Moore’s eyes narrow with interest. “Do you happen to know where Mr. Foster lives?”

Feeling generous after her blunder, Mrs. Wylie gives them an address. 

\--

Moore rings the doorbell for a second time and mutters, "come on, open up." They’re standing on the front porch of Luke Foster's residence, hoping for a bust or a breakthrough.

Daylight hours are limited, but there's still enough sunshine that Mallory can see something moving in her peripheral vision. 

Someone’s gone out the side door of the house and is making a run for the woods.

“There!” Mallory shouts. Moore swivels his head and catches the blur that she's pointing at. They give chase.

“Police!” Moore yells. The kid keeps running. They split up. Mallory circles through the trees while Moore tries to flush him out. One hand on her gun, Mallory steps carefully over a fallen log and tries not to make a sound. She can’t hear anything but the sound of her own breathing and distantly, Moore’s heavy footsteps.

Back pressed against a sapling, she waits.

Mallory counts to twenty and a bird takes flight from the bushes to her left. Luke Foster emerges, back heaving with exertion. Quietly, Mallory draws her weapon and sneaks up behind him.

“Freeze,” she says. “Put your hands behind your back and get down on your knees.”

The boy, tall and slim, raises his hands in surrender and starts to turn around.

“I said freeze,” Mallory tells him. “Get down on your knees,”

He doesn’t listen. He keeps moving until he’s facing her completely. Mallory gets a look at his black eyes and feels her hands shake with terror. His face is wrong, alien. This isn’t Luke Foster. Something’s wearing his skin. 

Shadows flirt at the edges of her vision. They whisper it's name. “Demon,” Mallory breathes.

Luke's lips curl in a nasty smirk. He opens his mouth, teeth pointed, and lets out a ear-splitting screech.

 _Pain_.

Mallory falls to her knees. She clutches at her ears and drops her gun in the dirt.

She can't think. Can't breathe. She’s going to pass out, it’s too much. 

Abruptly, the shrieking cuts out. Something thuds against the ground.

Mallory blinks her wet eyes open and looks up to see Moore standing over Luke’s body. He’s still holding the tree branch that he used to knock him unconscious.

As they watch, Luke’s ribcage rises and falls with deep breaths. _Not dead then_.

“What in the shitting fuck was that?” Moore asks after a long, tense moment.

Mallory wipes the tears away from her face. “I don’t know.”

“The fuck you don’t!” Moore argues. “I saw you looking at it. You know! You wigged out in the gym and you’ve been acting strange since this whole _thing—"_ he flails his arms around "—started.”

Mallory stands and re-holsters her weapon. “You don’t want to know, John,” she says, brushing her hands off on her pants. “It’s safer that way. There things at work here that you can’t even imagine.”

“I’m not stupid, Mallory. The evidence doesn’t add up. LaVeau said as much. We’re chasing smoke.”

Mallory sighs and rubs her temples. He isn’t going to let this drop. “Get some cuffs on him,” she says. They have to take Luke, or whatever he is, back to the station.

“And,” Moore prompts.

Mallory meets his steely eyes and says honestly, “and I’ll tell you what I know.”

\--

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” Mallory says. She’s crouched next to Luke’s head with one hand threaded through his hair. Moore watches, equal parts intrigued and skeptical.

Closing her eyes, Mallory thinks about mending the gash in Luke’s scalp. They can’t take him in with a gaping wound. They need to keep this off of the books.

It takes a minute, but the tingling sensation in her fingertips lets Mallory know that her powers are working. _Breathe_ , she thinks. _Inhale, exhale_. Luke’s skin knits itself back together between one blink and the next. “Holy shit!” Moore leans over her shoulder to get a closer look at the kid’s head. “That’s awesome. Are you a witch or something?”

Mallory's confused by his reaction. “Or something,” she says. “You’re taking this well. I expected screaming.”

Moore shrugs. “Ariel’s father is a Mangkukulam. He did some weird shit with chickens at our wedding.”

Hooking their arms through a still unconscious Luke’s, Moore and Mallory heft the kid to his feet and start dragging him back to the SUV.

“Is Luke a witch too?” Moore asks. “That shrieking thing was all kinds of eerie.”

“No,” Mallory grunts, muscles working to hold the boy’s weight up. “I think that he’s possessed by a demon.”

“Cool, cool, cool,” Moore says. “Demons are real too. That’s fine. I’m fine.”

Mallory snorts. “It’s fine if you’re not. I’m not fine. I didn’t want to believe that something supernatural was going on, but you’re right, the evidence doesn’t add up.”

“It’s actually comforting to know that there isn’t a normal explanation for why a teenage girl would go full Hannibal on her best friend,” Moore muses.

Mallory inclines her head. “That’s one way to look at it.”

Twenty minutes later, they fold Luke into the backseat of Mallory's car and collapse, sweating and dirty, in the driveway.

“Okay,” Moore pants. “Give me a minute and I’ll will my legs to drive.”

Mallory barks a laugh. It feels cleansing. She digs in her pocket and pulls out her keys. “I got it,” she says. “But before we go, you have to punch me in the face.”

“What? No!” Moore protests. 

“You don't have to turn me into hamburger,” Mallory says. “Just a little tap. Just to make it authentic. We have to have some reason to hold Luke. Otherwise, we’ll have to turn him loose when his parents inevitably come marching into the station.”

Moore knows that she’s right. “I can’t believe that I’m even entertaining this idea,” he huffs.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Mallory snarks.

“Ugh. No," Moore says. "Alright, hold still.”

Mallory braces herself against the car door, but keeps her eyes open. She sees Moore wind up as best that he can in his sitting position and throw his arm. The speed is too slow. He’s pulling the hit.

A flick of her fingers rockets his hand into her cheekbone. Moore’s knuckles crack. “Ow, Mallory!” he yelps. “Don’t use your stuff on me!”

 _Fuck, shit._ _That hurts_. Mallory cups the left side of her face and resists the urge to heal the hot ache. “You were being a chicken shit,” she slurs. She heals Moore’s knuckles before they can bruise.

They decide to take the long route back to the station.

“I’ve been able to do things since I was eleven,” Mallory tells Moore. She keeps her eyes focused on the road in front of them and thinks about how best to explain her history. _Probably best to skip over the incest and homicide_. “I stopped using my powers when I was eighteen because once you open that door, other things can get in,” she says eventually. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder to the backseat. “Things like whatever is inside of Luke.”

Moore just nods, content to listen.

“I thought that maybe it was all a coincidence, but I think that we’re dealing with a magic user. That paper rose was cloaked in shadow. I could feel the evil. Also, Samuels told me that the lab in Bend found absolutely no traces of accelerant in the samples taken from the areas around Amos’ body.” Mallory’s mouth dries up. “I-I used to know someone who could light things on fire with their mind. Maybe there’s another person on the loose with the same ability.”

“Someone who's summoning demons,” Moore says.

Mallory tightens her hands on the steering wheel. “Exactly." She didn't get this far without a strong sense of denial. She’s not ready to consider the idea that Michael is involved. He can’t be. He was in Los Angeles when the first murders took place. If someone is using demons to terrorize the town, they're powerful enough to have gotten inside of her head. They could be using her memories as a distraction. _Yeah, that’s it_ , Mallory thinks. Michael isn’t here. He’s not coming for her.

She ignores the stab of sadness in her chest. 

Luke is just rousing when they get back to the station. His eyes may be green again, but his expression is still...off. Predatory. Thankfully, the demon lurking under the surface keeps it’s mouth shut. They hand Luke over to the officers in booking with little fuss. The official story is that he assaulted Mallory and tried to make a run for it. Mallory has Carol look up his parents’ phone numbers and leaves messages informing them that their son is being held for a misdemeanor offence. It should buy them enough time to figure out what to do with him. They need to know if he’s connected to the other murders or if this was a one-time possession.

“Christ,” Anderson says when they walk into the office. “What happened to your face, Langdon?”

Mallory doesn’t take the bait. “We followed a lead from the school and ended up bringing in a suspect,” she says.

“Seriously?” Samuels asks, impressed.

“A teacher spilled the beans on the fight,” Moore says. “She figures that the girls were fighting over a boy. We went to check out Romeo's digs and the kid came out swinging.”

Anderson actually looks excited. “Is he talking?” he asks.

Mallory can’t help herself. “Nope,” she pipes up. “You’re welcome to take a crack at him.”

Anderson comes up to them and squeezes them both on the shoulders. “You did good today,” he says, like he’s handing out participation trophies. “Don't worry, we'll break him.” He gives them one last squeeze and heads off toward the holding cells. “Samuels!” he barks, “with me.”

Mallory’s shocked to see Samuels break character and actually roll his eyes. “He means well,” he tells them. Ever the good stooge, he follows after his partner.

Moore waits for them to disappear before turning Mallory. “You devious bitch,” he whispers. “Are you trying to get them killed?”

Mallory gives him an innocent look. “I doubt that the demon will try anything. It’s too risky. Anderson could panic and shoot it’s host. It’ll probably stonewall them.”

“Maybe,” Moore concedes. “But I’m not going to forget this ruthless streak. You’re definitely on my team the next time that we play scrabble.”

Mallory’s lips try to pull into a smile but it's ruined by her swollen cheek. “I have no idea where to start," she says, "but we need to do some research. We have to find out what that demon knows—”

“And get it out of Luke Foster,” Moore finishes.

“Yes." Mallory's undergone her fair share of exorcisms, but she’s never delivered one. 

“Your parents didn’t know about any this?” Moore asks.

Mallory furrows her brow. “I didn’t know my parents,” she says, pensive. She has no idea if either of them were magical. 

Moore doesn’t miss a beat. “Well, lucky for us, Ariel’s on good terms with his dad. We can always ask him if he knows something.”

Mallory hums and lets herself slump against Moore’s side. It’s been a long day. “You wouldn't happen to have any ice at that house of yours, would you?” 

\--

At Moore’s house, ice comes with tequila for the sting.

By the time Ariel gets home, they’re already half a bottle in. He finds them in the living room, spread out on the floor with Moore’s personal laptop between. “Well, well, well. What have we got here?” he asks.

Mallory startles at the sound of his voice. She never hears him coming.

“We’re ‘searchin,” Moore slurs. He slaps a hand against Mallory’s chest. “Mallie’s a witch ur somethin. And there'r demons makin people eat each other.” He punctuates his sentence with a hiccup. Next to him, Mallory facepalms.

“So,” Ariel says, “she’s finally told you.”

Mallory and Moore swing their heads around in unison. Suspicious, Mallory folds her legs underneath herself and rises slowly to her feet.

Ariel puts his hands up peacefully. “I mean you no harm, Mallory. It’s just in my nature to recognize magical signatures.”

Mallory’s truly baffled. Two years of friendship and he’d never let on. “Why didn’t you say something?” she asks.

Ariel smiles at her kindly. “It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“Why am I always the lass person to know things?” Moore asks. He lets his head flop back on the couch cushions. “My husbans a freakin’ wizard.”

Mallory relaxes, muscles untensing, and Ariel comes over to pet Moore’s hair. “No, Mahal, not a wizard," he reassures him. "Just an observer of Kulam.”

Confident that Ariel's not going to try anything, Mallory flops back down on the floor. “Is that your magic?” she asks.

“Yes,” Ariel says. “It’s a form of folk magic; herbs, spices—that sort of thing.” He looks down at the laptop, forgotten on the floor. “Has google yielded much help with the demon problem?”

Moore snorts. “We found a lot of weird porn.”

Ariel presses his lips together to keep from laughing. “My sympathies,” he says. “If you give me a moment, I believe that I can be of some assistance.” With that, he pivots on a socked foot and strides off toward the bedrooms.

“Dude,” Moore says to Mallory. “I’m bangin’ a wizard.” Because Mallory loves him, she bumps her fist against his.

When Ariel returns, he has a stack of books in his arms. “These are all that I have on Pagtatawas,” he says. Moore and Mallory slow blink at him. Ariel sighs, “it’s a type of divination used to diagnose afflictions of the body and soul. I assume that you need to exorcise the demon from whatever host it’s occupying.”

“Our murder suss—sspect,” Moore tells him.

Ariel frowns. “Oh, dear.”

Together, with Ariel translating, they make it through two of the four books before Moore and Mallory pass out.

\--

_A hot body against hers, arms grasping and hips grinding in a fraught, desperate rhythm. She’s filled to the brim; stretched and pulsing around the cock that's made just for her. Mallory moans, overcome. Hands fist into her hair and pull her lips into a bruising kiss. She opens to the pressure and lets herself be wrapped up—owned, possessed._

_When her lungs burn, she breaks away to gasp in a needed breath. Her hips twitch upwards, seeking. Climax pulls taught at the base of her spine. She’s so close that she can taste it. She digs her nails into lithe muscles and feels that mouth press against her cheek. Warm lips drag in a strange pattern. A sibilant hiss pressed against her skin._

_Mallory does her best to listen._

_“See,” they whisper. “See.”_

Mallory’s eyes shoot open. She comes, spine arching, with Michael's name on her tongue. She bites her lip to keep from whimpering. 

Moore snores on across from her on the rug.

Underwear and thighs sticky, Mallory turns over on her side and huddles into a ball. She grips the blanket that Ariel must have draped over her and gets a whiff of wet bark and dirt. 

Mallory freezes. Something isn't right. 

Eye's adjusting to the darkness, she spies something amiss with the book next to her head.

There's a muddy handprint in the middle of the pages. 

Mallory wraps her arms around her ribcage and tries desperately not to scream.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize now that I've been spelling Laveau wrong, like a twat. I'm too lazy to fix it though, so we'll all have to learn to live with it.

Early the next morning, Mallory sits stiffly at Moore’s kitchen table and watches him slap at the coffee machine with eyes half-closed. She’d made up her mind to tell him about Michael somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. Staring at that muddy handprint, lifeline broken by a scar that matches her own, had worn her denial thin. If she keeps lying by omission, someone’s going to get hurt. The safest thing for John and Ariel to do would be to cut ties with her completely. Whether Michael’s involved with the murders or not, he’ll keep tormenting her until he gets what he wants.

She just needs to figure out what that is.

Ariel opens late on late Thursdays, so he’s the last one out of bed. He’s careful to make noise when he moves down the hallway. Mallory hears the soft tread of feet before the Albularyo—a kind of herbalist, he’d explained to them the night before—rounds the corner from the hallway.

Moore tilts his head to accept the kiss that Ariel presses to his cheek. “Good morning,” the shorter man says. Moore grunts in return. Ariel moves past him to the refrigerator and starts pulling out eggs and cheese for breakfast. “I hope that the next time you two decide to go running before dawn, you’ll leave your muddy clothes in the entrance way. The bathroom’s a complete mess,” he says.

Moore’s back stiffens. _“What?”_ he asks, instantly alarmed.

Mallory pales. So much for talking about this calmly.

“Hmm.” Ariel cracks an egg into a bowl. “From your response I take it that neither of you were outside.”

Moore grabs a wicked looking knife from the block on the counter and stalks down the hallway. It’s silent for a moment before he kicks the bathroom door in. “Jesus Christ!”

Mallory flinches at the shout and digs her fingernails into her palms. Moore’s eyes are wild when he jogs back into the kitchen. “It looks like an animal decided to take a bath in there,” he says, waving the knife around. “There’s mud all up the walls.”

“I thought that maybe you were still drunk.” Ariel’s voice is placid. He looks completely calm. He finishes cracking the last egg in the carton and starts whisking with practiced flicks of his wrist.

“Are you seriously making breakfast?” Moore asks, incredulous. He slams the knife down on the table. “This could be connected to the case. There could have been a serial killer _in our house!_ ”

Ariel ignores Moore’s rising volume and pours the egg mixture into a skillet on the stove. “Be a dear and rinse this for me,” he says, holding the empty bowl out to his spouse.

“Did you hear a word that I just said?” Moore’s hands are on his hips.

Ariel raises a warning brow. “Oh, I heard you. If you calm down, I think that Mallory may have an explanation for us.”

Moore swings his head around to stare at her and Mallory holds her breath. Fear stills her tongue and stiffens her back. She’s never done well with anger. Some part of her will always associate raised voices with broken mirrors and the lash of a cane.

Twenty seconds of painful scrutiny later, Moore turns and jerks the bowl out of Ariel’s hands. He moves past the table to the sink and Mallory feels herself relax. She pulls in a shaky breath and tries to collect her resolve. It’s easier to think without either of them looking at her.

Ariel pulls a spatula out of a drawer and starts scrambling the eggs. “The thing about magical signatures,” he says, voice gentle, “is that no two are alike. Except of course, with twins and bonded pairs.”

Mallory sees the prompt for what it is and gulps in another breath. She’d always pictured Michael’s magic as something twisted and wrong. “You know,” she croaks.

Ariel keeps his eyes on the stove. “If it wasn’t you leaving a ring around my tub, it’s the only logical conclusion.”

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Moore asks. “I don’t appreciate being kept out of the loop.” He twists the tap on viscously and swirls the bowl under the stream.

Mallory leans her elbows on the table and squeezes her eyes shut—like she’s praying. “I wasn’t completely honest with you yesterday,” she says quietly, then louder, “I’ve been lying to you since I joined the detachment. I left Los Angeles to get away from someone. My brother, Michael. He had powers too.” Mallory's nose stings. She scratches at the table in distraction. “He murdered our grandmother when we were eighteen. She was abusive, but that wasn’t why he did it. He sacrificed her as a part of s—some ritual.” She clears her throat to get rid of the wobble. “Michael wasn’t afraid of the darkness beyond the door. He opened it and let it in. Said it made him stronger. He’s been in a psychiatric facility for the last eleven years.”

There's a tense pause, air weighted with her truth.

“Has or is?” Moore asks.

“Was,” Mallory breathes. “He escaped the night before we spoke to the Chief.”

“Fucking hell!” Moore swears. He pushes away from the sink and starts pacing. “You didn’t think that was important information! He could be looking for revenge. Do you even have a restraining order?”

Mallory blinks blurry eyes. “You’re not worried about him being involved?” she asks.

Moore comes to a stop in front of her and frowns. “The timeline doesn’t add up.” He sounds angry about it.

“You have every right to be mad at me—” Mallory says. Moore cuts her off. “I’m pissed that you put yourself in danger.” A muscle in his jaw jumps. “But I understand why you didn’t want to say anything.” His gaze flits to the back of Ariel’s head. “I’d hesitate to incriminate my family. Even if they _are_ conniving wizard folk.”

“Still not a wizard,” Ariel hums, unbothered.

Mallory sobs out a laugh and lets all of the frustration and terror that she’s been carrying around for the last twenty-four hours dissolve into tears. Moore pats her back with an awkward hand. “Don’t think you’re off the hook,” he says. “You’re bleaching the tub after breakfast.”

Mallory leans back to wipe her cheeks. “That’s fair."

Moore waits until they’re all seated around the table, egg scramble and toast on their plates, to ask any more questions. “What does this brother of yours look like anyway?” he asks Mallory casually, passing the jam to Ariel. “I’m picturing black eyeliner and lipstick.”

Mallory pokes at her eggs. “Goths aren’t Satanists.” She thinks back to her last visit with Michael at the facility and has to hold back a sigh. If she concentrates, she can still recall the feel of his stubble underneath her fingertips. “The last time I saw him, he had his hair long,” she says eventually. “It’s lighter than mine. He doesn’t look like anyone else in town. You’ll know him when you see him.”

“Geez, Mal,” Moore gripes, “those are some details. What? Is he the ugly twin? A Plankton type villain suffering from little man syndrome?”

The patterned plates in Ariel’s sideboard give a dangerous rattle.

Mallory stabs a piece of sausage and feels her scar throb. “He’s the most beautiful man that I’ve ever seen,” she says, voice tight.

Ariel raps Moore’s knuckles with his butter knife before he can dive into that comment. “Eat your breakfast,” he tells him. “You can interrogate her later. We’ve had enough revelations this morning.”

Mallory peeks at Ariel from under her lashes and he gives her a small smile. Loud and clear in her mind she hears, _try to control that emotion before you smash my wedding china._

Mallory eyes widen. Sonofabitch. He's broadcasting his thoughts.

Ariel’s lip twitches with amusement. _No need to be defensive, I have no ability to listen in. I was merely testing if you could._

Mallory dry swallows a bit of toast and nods imperceptibly. _I haven’t used it in years_ , she thinks, feeding the words directly into his consciousness.

Ariel winks. _People’s thoughts are hardly savory enough for everyday consumption_.

He’s not wrong. Mallory remembers learning to listen in with Michael and immediately wanting to shut it off. The noise had been maddening. She’d learned more about the public librarian that afternoon than she’d ever wanted to know.

Moore sets his mug of coffee down and squints at them suspiciously. “Why are you guys so quiet?” He waggles a finger. “Are you sluts doing something weird?”

Ariel hits him with his butter knife again.

\--

Mallory’s just finishing her shower in the freshly scrubbed bathroom when Moore bursts through the door and yanks the curtain open.

She freezes, arms up, mid-shampoo.

“Samuels called,” Moore says, completely deadpan. “LaVeau’s ready to go over her findings.”

Mallory pulls a hand from her soapy hair and flicks her fingers at his face.

“Ah! What the fuck!” Moore shouts, hands coming up to cover his eyes.

“Shut the fucking curtain!” Mallory shouts back. Moore stumbles away from the shower and wipes his face on a hand towel.

“Rude!” he says. “I was just trying to communicate the urgency of the situation.”

Mallory rolls her eyes and starts rinsing. “Communicate it from the other side of the door.”

“Fine. Hurry up!”

The door closes with a slam.

Mallory checks that the coast is clear and climbs out of the tub. She towels off quickly and starts pulling on clothes from the bag that she always keeps in her car for situations such as this.

Overnighters, that is. Not demon possessions. _Har har_ , she thinks.

“I’m doubling down on my statement that we need to buy you cuter bras,” Moore says, voice muffled from the hall.

Mallory finishes buttoning her blouse and hastily hooks her gun and badge on the waistband of her jeans. A glance at the mirror tells her that her face is still bruised. It’s not a great look.

She sighs. Shiner or not, she can't hide in here forever. Resigned to another day of supernatural catastrophe, she gathers her things and pulls the bathroom door open. Moore’s there with his face smushed into the jamb like an overgrown dog. He blinks at her innocently and says, “if I were a straight man, I’d be very into those boobs.”

“I hate you.”

He smirks. “You love me. You shared all of your deep dark secrets with me. We’re practically family.”

Mallory throws her bag into his chest and marches past him with another sigh, this one tinged with reluctant affection. “If you remember,” she says, hands pulling her wet hair into a bun, “that didn’t work out so well for my grandmother.”

Moore recovers and elbows past her, bag in hand, to start toeing his shoes on in the entryway. “Pffft,” he says. “I’m made from tougher stuff.

“Tougher or dumber,” Mallory mutters. Moore trips her on the way out to the car.

\--

The basement of the hospital is just as eerie as it was the last time they were there. At least the greetings they receive from Anderson and Samuels are noticeably warmer.

The four of them shuffle into the autopsy suite and wait semi-patiently while Dr. LaVeau, her purple scrubs a spot of unexpected cheerfulness in the gloom, checks a few more lab results on a hospital computer.

“How’d it go with the interrogation?” Mallory asks Anderson.

The taller man shifts his weight against the wall behind them and looks down his nose at her with a smarmy smile. Mallory can almost imagine him tipping a black cowboy hat. “Boy’s a tough nut to crack,” he says. “But uh—” he covers a giggle with a cough, “the sack of burgers Samuels threw him at midnight and an overnight stay in gen-pop should have loosened his tongue.”

Moore leans forward and stares at Anderson, face incredulous. “You moved a youth offender to the gen-pop cell?”

Anderson bristles at his tone and raises his shoulders defensively. “Relax, Moore. There were two guys in there for public intoxication. It’s not like I threw him in with a biker gang.”

Moore subsides with huff, “that’s still not proper procedure.” Mallory knows that he’s far more worried about the safety of the other inmates than following protocol. They’d left the demon in isolation for a reason.

She thinks about finding another scene like the one at the high school and cringes. Samuels misinterprets the gesture. He leans over and whispers in her ear, “here I thought that we could go a day without them fighting.”

Mallory turns her head and meets his eyes. His top lip is shiny with VapoRub. “We'd have to cut out both of their tongues,” she whispers back.

The slow smile that Samuels gives her makes her squirm with confused discomfort. He looks…intrigued?

"Ruthless," he breathes. "You remind me of my brother." 

What a strange thing to say. 

Mallory turns her head back around and stares at the body on the table closest to them. She can feel Samuels' eyes on the side of her face. 

Blessedly, LaVeau finds the results that she’s looking for and comes over to start her examination. She stands over the girl that Mallory’s looking at and says, by way of introduction, “detectives, I’m sure you remember Amy Reed." She hovers a hand over the girl's collapsed features. "Aged seventeen, time of death twelve forty-five p.m., November 21, 2019. Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head. Self-inflicted.” The doctor pauses to take a breath. “Nail scrapings, defensive wounds and stomach contents confirm that Ms. Reed attacked and ingested the flesh and organs of our second victim.”

“I’m too hungover for this,” Moore mutters, teeth crunching a mint.

LaVeau moves over to the other examination table and strokes the dark hair above the second girl’s ashen face. “Molly Davis, aged eighteen, time of death twelve twenty p.m. Cause of death was hypovolemic shock. The injuries to her abdomen punctured the intestines and damaged the aorta. She bled out in minutes.”

“Anything on the tox screen?” Anderson asks.

LaVeau shakes her head. “Blood from both girls is negative for opioids, hallucinogens and stimulants. I checked every nook and cranny on the bodies and didn’t find any needle marks. No trace of a third-party killer either. He left them as clean as the other two.”

Mallory and Moore stay silent. They’re pretty sure that the demon put a spell on the origami rose that Molly and Amy were fighting over. Since Mrs. Wylie was unaffected after touching it, Ariel suggested that the hex must have required collection of hair or something of a more intimate nature.

“Any signs of recent intercourse?” Mallory asks. LaVeau, Anderson and Samuels all look at her curiously. Mallory feels the tips of her ears turn red. She clears her throat and focuses on LaVeau. “It’s just that we know that they were fighting over the same boy. We took him into custody last night." She points at her bruised cheek in explanation. “If we can establish that he’d been with both girls, we might be able to goad him into revealing something.”

“Well, yes,” LaVeau says. “There were signs of recent vaginal penetration in both girls. No evidence of force, just microtears that I assumed to indicate loss of virginity.”

Bingo.

“No sperm,” LaVeau continues. “Your guy must have worn a condom. I took swabs anyway. It’s all in my report, but I wasn’t sure if it was pertinent.” The doctor smirks. “We all know what high school was like.”

Anderson snickers, “maybe Langdon was a late bloomer.”

Mallory would really like to bash _his_ head into a wall.

LaVeau answers a few more questions and promises to call with the results of the vaginal swabs before she dismisses them. Now that all of the evidence has been collected, she needs to prepare the bodies for release to the families.

Anderson leads them all out of the elevator on the main floor of the hospital. He drops the elevator key at the front desk and keeps moving toward the parking lot with Moore and Samuels in tow. Mallory’s short legs leave her several steps behind them.

It’s nice to be alone with her thoughts. She takes the opportunity to puzzle out what she and Moore should do next. There’s a possibility that they missed other cursed objects at the first two crime scenes. Perhaps a visit to the Millers is warranted.

Mid-stride toward the sliding doors of the ER, a hand grabs Mallory’s arm. She startles, head twisting to look over her shoulder. She unclenches when she recognizes Chet, the head nurse.

Contrition paints his face. It does fetching things to his square jaw. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I called your name, but you didn’t hear me.” He releases her and they step out of the way of the doors together. “It’s Detective Langdon, right?”

Mallory nods. “What’s this about?”

Chet swallows like he’s nervous. “Someone came by looking for you earlier,” he says. Mistaking her alarm for anger, he holds his hands up. “Hey, I didn’t tell him where you were. I offered to call the station for him, but he said that he’d already been there. He looked distressed. Left in a hurry.”

Mallory feels her pulse elevate. The fine hairs on her body stand up in electric interest. She keeps her voice steady. “Thank you for telling me,” she says. “If he comes by again, call me. Don’t bother with hospital security.”

She grabs a pen out of her pocket and scribbles her number on the back of Chet’s hand.

The nurse smiles a little bashfully and asks, “do you think I could get the number of that detective with the long hair too?”

Mallory’s taken aback. “Anderson?” she asks. “Really?”

Chet shrugs a muscular shoulder. A rosy blush stains his cheeks. “I’m a sucker for an asshole in a suit.”

Mallory knows all about ill-advised attraction. “We like who we like,” she commiserates.

\--

Back at the station, the detectives barely push through the glass doors of the lobby before they’re confronted with Luke Foster’s angry parents. They’d been out of town at a dental convention until this morning.

 _“What did you do to our son?”_ Mrs. Foster hisses. She muscles her way past Samuels and plants herself firmly Mallory’s personal space. “My boy’s never been violent! They're saying he assaulted someone. You must have provoked him!”

“Your baby boy cold cocked officer Langdon,” Moore says. “He’s being held for questioning in relation to two deaths at the high school.” He puts a steadying hand on Mallory’s shoulder and let’s Mr. Foster pull his wife away.

“We want to see him,” the man says, expression grim. 

“Certainly,” Anderson tells him. He steps in front of Mallory and Moore, effectively boxing them out of the conversation. “I’m head of the investigation. My partner—” he looks at Samuels and jerks his head in the direction of holding cells, “—will place your son in a visitation room while I answer any of your other questions.”

“We’re calling a lawyer,” Mrs. Foster snaps.

“Ooh, hold up now. There’s no need for that." Mallory tunes out Anderson’s attempts at calming the Fosters and watches Samuels.

The detective disappears through the doors of holding and is gone for several minutes. When he comes back, his expression is troubled.

“He’s gone,” Samuels says.

Anderson breaks off from a lengthy explanation about the value of cooperation. “What?” he asks. “What do you mean he’s gone?”

“The kid’s not there,” Samuels says. “The uniforms on watch didn’t notice that he was missing. He just disappeared.”

Mallory exchanges a tense look with Moore. They’re fucked. If the demon doesn’t kill them, the Chief will.

Anderson chuckles nervously and walks over to lean in close to his partner. “That’s not possible,” he mutters.

“I know,” Samuels whispers loudly. “I know, Kai.” He ruffs up his short hair with a shaky hand. “We can check the tapes, see if they picked something up.”

That’s exactly what they do.

Unfortunately, the surveillance footage of the holding cells is clean. There’s nothing. One-minute Luke Foster’s sitting in the gen-pop cell, the next he’s gone. The last timestamp they have with him on camera is 12:45 a.m. The guards on duty and the drunks who were in the cell with Luke are all a little fuzzy about the timeline. No one has any memories beyond Luke eating his dinner and getting up to take a leak.

Anderson chalks their unawareness up to disinterest and alcohol withdrawal, but it’s obvious to Mallory that someone’s been tampering with their thoughts.

It’s frustrating. She looks into their heads and can't see anything but distorted faces, shapes and colours. In the end, they still have no idea how Luke got out or where he’s headed.

“Shit! Fuck!” Anderson exclaims. “What the hell are we supposed to tell the parents? Or the public? Local teenager pulls a Houdini?” He squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“We’ll go out and search,” Mallory says. “We’ll get every uniformed officer that we can spare out looking.” They need to find the demon before it harms someone else or jumps hosts.

Moore nods. “The parents will demand nothing less.”

In a rare show of common sense, Anderson deflates and sighs, “yeah. Okay.” He pats Mallory’s shoulder blindly. “Good thinking, Langdon.”

Mallory curls her lip, but he doesn’t see it.

\--

Moore drives this time. He and Mallory hit all of the abandoned houses, sheds and shacks on the north side of the city. Uniformed officers, accompanied by Anderson and Samuels, do the same in the other three directions.

They stop for McDonalds after nightfall and keep searching. It’s Moore’s vehicle, so Mallory doesn’t feel bad about dropping lettuce from her burger into the footwell.

“If I were a murderous demon, where would I go?” Moore hums, eyes darting back and forth between the road to the bushes next to the highway. “Can’t you do a location spell?” he asks.

Mallory throws the wrapper from her Big Mac into the takeout bag at her feet and keeps her own eyes peeled. Half-dead trees cast strange shadows in the dark.

“It’s not like I was trained,” she says. “I’m not even sure if something like that’s possible.”

Moore laughs, “you make an awful witch, you know that?”

“You’re not wrong, but I’m going to plead undue distress and eat your chicken nuggets.”

“Spiteful woman.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

They lapse into silence and let the buzz of the dispatch radio fill the cab. No one’s found anything yet.

Mallory taps the backs of her fingers against the window and ruminates on the state of affairs. She hopes that Luke Foster’s valuable enough as a meat-suit for the demon and it's master to keep him alive.

By 10:30 p.m. she and Moore are pinching themselves to keep their eyes open.

Anderson calls off the search half an hour later due to poor visibility. A low-lying fog’s rolled in off the ocean. Mallory worries that the mist is supernatural in origin, but when she listens for answers, the shadows are silent. Not a peep. Grudgingly, she accepts that sometimes Mother Nature is just creepy.

\--

“Thanks for driving,” Mallory tells Moore. “Get home before you drop.”

Her partner rubs his eyes tiredly and sighs, “yeah, will do.” Mallory shuts the passenger door and starts to turn toward her own vehicle in the station parking lot. Before she can walk away, Moore leans across the front seat says, voice carrying out the open window, “hey, I’ll ask Ariel about coming around the station tomorrow. Maybe he can check if anyone left a signature thingy by the holding cells.”

Mallory’s kind of annoyed that she didn’t think of that first. Mostly, she’s just glad that one of their brains is working. God. She needs sleep.

“Good thinking,” she says. “We should show him the rose first.” She’d feel bad about treating her friend like an EMF detector, but they don’t exactly have many options.

Moore nods easily. “Sounds good." His cheek pulls with a twitch, belying his nerves. "Are you going to be alright at home alone?” he asks.

Mallory gives him a thumbs up. “Ariel gave me a book about protective charms before he left for the diner.” She’d thumbed through the slim volume before she and Moore cleaned the bathroom.

Setting up a magical trip wire looked simple enough. According to the diagrams, all she needs to do is carve two symbols into the jamb of every door and window in the house and mark them with blood.

Moore seems pleased with her answer. “When in doubt, try salt,” he says. He gives her a sloppy salute and drives away.

Mallory rolls her eyes. Winchesters they are not.

She’s struggling to dig her keys out of a pocket—damn the makers of women's jeans—when her cellphone goes off. She fumbles for the phone in a different pocket and freezes when she sees the call display.

It’s an unknown number.

Mallory’s chest squeezes tight. She pushes the call button in the hopes that it’s Chet. “Langdon,” she breathes.

“Hello detective, it’s Dr. LaVeau. You asked me to call with the results of the vaginal swabs.”

Mallory’s shoulders sag at the sound of the pathologist’s voice. It’s not disappointment. Really. It’s not. “I didn’t expect to be hearing from you so soon,” she says. “Thank you for calling.”

“It’s no trouble,” LaVeau insists. “I was hoping that we could go over the results together. Something isn’t quite right, and I’d like your opinion. I’m still here at the hospital if you have a minute?”

Mallory would rather go straight home, but something in LaVeau’s voice keeps her from saying no. “Sure,” she tells the other woman. “It’s on my way.”

“Excellent." LaVeau's tone is clipped. “They shut the elevator down for sterilization and maintenance in the evenings, so you’ll have to take the stairs. I’ll have one of the nurses leave it unlocked for you. Take the flight through the door at the back of the ER.”

“Alright. See you soon.” Mallory hangs up and blinks her dry eyes rapidly. She promises herself a fancy coffee if she can just keep functioning for a few more hours.

Chet’s not on duty when she get’s back to hospital. A sweet looking nurse named Nan lets her into the ER and takes her back to the proper door. By some miracle, Mallory makes it down the steep flight of stairs to the basement without falling on her face.

From the stairwell, she'd heard nothing. As soon as she pushes through the door to the basement, her ears are assaulted with the sound of raised voices.

Mallory slows her steps and sticks close to the wall on her left. She’s spoiled for cover in the darkness. Someone’s shut off all of the fluorescent lights that were on during the daytime.

Training taking over, Mallory unbuttons her holster and takes her gun in hand, flicking the safety off. Slowly, moving in one foot in front of the other, she slinks toward the morgue. She stays low and just peeks through a window in the double doors.

She immediately identifies LaVeau and Samuels. They’re arguing.

And they’ve both got wings.

Mallory pinches herself. Still awake then. She has no idea how to process what's happening.

Samuels grabs LaVeau by the throat and lifts her up with inhuman strength. “You just couldn’t stay out of it,” he growls. “I had to dispatch my best half-breed stooge because of you.” He doesn’t sound like his usual self at all.

LaVeau claws at his hand. “You won’t be successful, Balthazar,” she coughs, struggling to pull in air. “You can’t barter your way into Heaven.”

A cold smile crosses Samuels’ face. “Of course, I can,” he sneers. “Daddy dearest will be forced to show himself when his precious sun goes black.”

LaVeau spits in his face. “You lost the right to call him father when you were cast out with Lucifer.”

Without warning, Samuels throws her into the refrigeration unit. Her body hits the door of a body drawer with a sick thud. Mallory stifles a gasp into her shoulder and keeps watching, riveted.

LaVeau hacks up a mouthful of blood and looks up at Samuels with baleful eyes. “We stopped the dragon from devouring the children at birth, and we will stop him again.”

Samuels tsks. “Uriel, Uriel,” he says, “get with the program. We’ve moved on from all of that. Lucy’s still in time out, after all. I'm the brains behind the operation this time. I wish to nourish the remnant of your precious Vivian’s seed, not wage war.” 

LaVeau stares at him in horror. “The beast with two horns like a lamb,” she whispers.

“Yes,” Samuels hisses. “My shiny ticket back.”

"If you just want the child, what's with all of the other fanfare?" LaVeau asks. 

"What can I say," Samuels sighs. "I'm a dramatic bitch. I have no contacts in Heaven anymore, so I have to call collect and break all seven seals. On the plus side, the more distressed little Mallory is, the faster the whelp will hasten to her." 

"You've abandoned your senses!" 

Samuels ignores LaVeau. He picks up a metal basin and weighs it in his hands. “As lovely as it’s been talking to you," he says, "let’s not do it again.” He flicks the basin out at an impossible speed and it cracks against LaVeau’s head. Light seeps from her slack body and floats upwards, disappearing from the room. Her wings are gone.

Mallory flinches back from the sight of her dead colleague and feels tears prick her eyes.

“And stay out,” Samuels says, dusting his hands off like they’re dirty.

Mallory sees him turn toward the doors and starts to hyperventilate. She won’t reach the stairwell in time. There’s nowhere that she can hide.

 _“Hang on.”_ The voice is male and familiar. Mallory has no time to react as an arm wraps around her from behind and pulls her into a solid chest. Something jerks behind her belly. Her gun goes off in the confusion. 

The arm that Mallory's clinging to turns her loose and she stumbles, dropping her weapon. Something soft breaks her fall. She lands, sprawled across an unmade motel bed.

She whips her hair out of her eyes and stares at her brother.

The last thing she expects him to do is start pulling off the shirt that he’s wearing. She recognizes it as one of Moore’s.

“That was unpleasant,” Michael says grimly. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me again.” There’s blood trickling from a hole in his shoulder. Mallory tries not to stare at the planes of his smooth chest.

Eleven years since he’s been in lock up. Two since they’ve seen each other face to face.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asks, voice low.

Michael looks up abruptly and pins her with roiling cerulean eyes. “That depends, Mallie. Are you going to kill me?”

She tries not to shiver at the nickname. “You’re angry,” she says, stating the obvious.

“Being wrongly imprisoned will do that to a person,” he spits.

“You murdered Constance—”

“To an outside observer it would appear so, but if the murderer isn’t in control of their body, they can hardly be labeled as such,” he says, pressing the ruined shirt against his wound.

Mallory's eyebrows pinch together. “What? I don’t understand.”

Michael grits his teeth against a wave of pain. “Come here, sweet sister, and I’ll show you.”

“I don’t think—”

“I said _come here_ ,” he snaps.

Mallory crawls off of the bed slowly and approaches him, frame rigid with tension.

“Closer,” Michael says.

When they’re inches apart, he bends down and presses their foreheads together. He smells like blood, and sweat, and Ariel’s French milled soap. Mallory stares into his eyes and imagines that she can still smell herself there, her perfume mingled with the scent of his skin underneath all of the others.

The bloody shirt drops to the floor. Michael’s good hand comes up to cup the back of her neck. “I believe you remember how to do this,” he says.

His mind bombards Mallory in a rush. She struggles for control, bracing her hands against his waist, and dives beyond this moment into his memories; the past.

_**_

_He’s in the old house._

_It must be Sunday, because the priests are back. He doesn’t like the way Father Deacon looks at Mallory. He tries to say something, but the new priest shuffles him off to another room._

_The man introduces himself as Balthazar. He tells him that he’s special. That his father loves him._

_He believes the man until he says something in a funny language and locks him away._ _He hammers at the bars of his cage night and day._

 _No one notices. Not even Mallory._

_He tries to warn her. He folds messages into the creases of cranes and blooming roses, but she doesn’t see—can’t bear to look past the carnage that the thing—the demon—leaves for her._

_It taunts him about his mother, says that she was a psychic whore. Nothing more than a vessel for his father, the great dragon._

_He keeps fighting, but it’s getting harder. The thing fills his head with horrible visions of death. The end of the world._

_It’s waiting for someone to arrive._ _No, for someone to be born._

_A new king. The beast of the earth._

_The name means nothing to him. Mallory is his only reprieve. His patch of calm in the storm. When they’re together, the demon releases it’s hold on his thoughts and allows him to rise to the surface._

_It finds human copulation revolting. It encourages, but wants no part in their joining of flesh. "You enflame her desires," it says. "Soon she'll be ready. A new vessel."_

_He cherishes their stolen moments and does what he can to protect Mallory. He cuts into her hand and clamps their wounds together. He’s seen the books that the demon reads on blood magic. He knows that a blood oath binds body and soul, stronger even than love._

_No other being can touch her or try to use her womb._ _Not while his wretched lungs draw breath._

_Mallory's at school when he tries to castrate himself in the bathroom. He nearly succeeds before the demon stills his hand_ _. It throws the knife out the window._

_“Stupid boy,” it tells him, “we’ll just heal you.”_

_He kicks and claws. It takes three tries for the demon to push him under and flush Mallory’s birth control down the toilet._

_He's gone, lost in oblivion for a few days. When he surfaces next, Constance’s blood is cold on his hands._ _He chases Mallory and hammers at the bathroom door._ _The demon thinks it’s funny. It lets him call out for her, knowing that she won’t save him._

_He sings his pain._

_It’s whirling then, changing. He’s in the facility._

_The days are monotonous. He keeps himself busy with memories of sweet kisses and the smell of her hair. The demon can’t get her here. They’re locked away._

_It’s planning something, but he doesn’t know what. It hides it from him, sends him so deep that there’s nothing but echoes and darkness._

_Years later, she visits. His sunshine._

_The demon seizes his awareness too fast for him to counter. It touches her. Reads her intentions._ _When she runs, it plots._

 _"Seven seals," the demon mutters. "A simple task. Four horsemen and the mark of the beast. The sun will die and silence will fall. Father will be forced to take me back or let Lucifer out of his cage."_ _It's arrogant, too busy with it's plans to notice him listening in._

_He dreams about other people. Strangers. The demon's searching._

_Months later, he sees it take another body._ _He wakes up, soaked with sweat and shakes in his cot. Later, he realizes that he’s alone inside his skull._

_It’s gone._

_He waits until dinner and irritates another inmate until they break his ribs. The nurses say that he needs to go to the hospital._

_It’s easy to slip his bonds._

_He takes a moment to feel the air on his skin, outside of the gates, before he makes a run for it. He teleports between one stride and the next._

_The sound of gulls. He flares his nostrils, loam and geosmin. Her._

_He sleeps in the hollow of a tree and wraps his arms around himself, conserving his energy; healing._

_He’s coming..._

_**_

Mallory slips out of Michael’s mind and sinks back into her body. She’s crying.

All this time.

All this time she’s wasted, allowing herself to be blind _—_ to take the easy way out and hate him. She wants to howl out her rage and bring the building down around them.

She sings instead. Like he did.

 _“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”_ Her tear-soaked voice is rough. She closes her eyes and imagines herself clasping his pinky under a closet door. _“You make me happy when skies are gray—”_

She breaks. Michael’s arms wrap around her middle and squeeze her tight to his body. His hair tickles the side of her face and she luxuriates in the sensation. He's corporeal. This isn't a dream. 

Michael buries his nose into her own hair and breathes deep. _“You'll never know dear,”_ he gusts, _“how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away.”_

“I’m so sorry,” Mallory weeps. She whispers it over and over again until the syllables are hard to make out. Michael quiets her sobs, afraid that she’ll make herself sick with the heaving.

A few seconds tick over filled with intermittent sniffles. “It wasn’t a demon,” Mallory says, eventually, voice wrecked.

“What?” Michael says. He tries to tip her face up, but Mallory keeps her eyes averted. She can’t look at him right now.

“It wasn’t a demon,” she repeats. “You were possessed by an angel. I heard them talking before you grabbed me. I saw the wings. Balthazar is an angel who was cast out with Lucifer." She pauses awkwardly. "Our...father? I think that makes him our uncle." She's unclear on the details. 

“Oh.” Michael trembles in her embrace. “Somehow, that makes it worse.”

He sounds so lost. Mallory can’t take it. She rises up on her toes and kisses him. Before Michael can fully register the action, she pulls away, guilty and uncertain that she has the right.

The grip Michael has on her shirt tightens. She has time to blink before he pulls her back in and presses their mouths together.

Mallory lets her eyes flutter shut and surrenders to him. She opens under the gentle pressure of his tongue and can’t help the moan that rattles in her throat. All she can taste, all she can perceive, is Michael. Her twin. The protecter of her body and soul.

Her keeper.

They separate when it gets hard to breathe. Mallory untangles a hand from where it’s somehow migrated completely into Michael’s hair and takes stock of her other limbs. She’s got one leg curled around his hip and her denim covered crotch is hovering scant millimetres from the hardness growing in his pants.

She blushes. It’s been a long time since she’s been able to touch another person like this.

Michael’s unphased by their compromising position. “You should probably heal my shoulder before I pass out,” he says simply. “I’d love to fuck you into the wall, but I’d probably fall over and flatten you into the disgusting carpet.”

Mallory titters like an idiot. Jesus. She shakes her head to clear it. “Okay,” she says. Nothing’s remotely okay, but she pretends anyway.

She ignores Michael’s disappointed groan and dismounts, shifting to the side to examine the gunshot wound in his shoulder. It’s not too bad. The bullet went right through. She saves him the agony of her hands and leans forward to breathe out over the wound.

Her air skates over Michael’s ragged skin like a touch, healing muscle and connective tissue. Another breath and the hole is gone. Her powers had always been stronger when he was around.

“Great,” Michael says, smearing a hand through blood to feel unblemished skin. He starts to slump.

Mallory guides him over to the bed and they lie on their backs, staring at the ceiling. She's too wound up to relax.

“What now?” she blurts.

Michael glances at her with one eyebrow raised. It’s incredibly attractive and horribly irritating. “I thought it was obvious,” he drawls. “We try to stop the apocalypse.”

Mallory exhales her exasperation, “it’s good to know that you were always an asshole and that it wasn’t just the parasite inside your skull.”

Michael chortles at the barb. “I missed you,” he says.

Mallory's smile is a little thing. “I missed you too.”

A car alarm goes off somewhere in the distance. Mallory wonders if Five Finger Mike, a regular at the station, is off parole.

“So,” Michael says, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Who popped you in the face?”

Mallory snorts. They have a lot of catching up to do, and few hours to do it. “You were in his house,” she says, “and he'll never forgive you for ruining his shirt.”


End file.
